New Orleans Travelogue - Part 5: One place to skip

The original title for this part of my travelogue was going to be: "Mardi gras museum and three-piece jazz band top stuffy servers and mediocre (and expensive) food at tourist trap Arnaud's," but that would have been too long and cumbersome. In a nutshell, however, that is really all you need to know.

Here are some details anyway:

We decided to eat at Arnaud's on our last night for a lot of the usual reasons. It's a famous, reputedly great restaurant. It's part of the New Orleans culinary scene. It was close to our hotel. And we'd never been there before. When I called for reservations, we found out there was the added bonus of sitting in the "less classy" room, where you could order off the same haute menu while listening to live jazz music (for only $4 per person more) and not have to dress to the nines. That was for us, so we signed on.

I won't detail all the things that went wrong at Arnaud's. Suffice to say when the guy gave me a wine list then asked if I was ready to order the wine before he'd so much as showed me a menu, I knew we were in trouble. When I ordered a wine off the "special" prix fixe menu and was told I could only order it if I ordered off that menu, regardless of price and regardless of the fact that our a la carte meal totalled about twice what the prix fixe menu did, I was flabbergasted. "This is, um, some kind of rule," the goofball said. "Just give me the wine I asked for, asshole, I'm the customer!" I wanted to say, but I didn't want to create any enmity right at the start of our last meal in New Orleans, so I ordered something else and bit my tongue.

And it was good I bit my tongue, because the meal was completely unimpressive and not something I wanted to taste too closely anyway. Baked oysters: spongy, lifeless and ordinary. Fish: bland and uninspired. Steak with crabmeat: Salted to death, cooked poorly, unoriginal, and freaking expensive. The wine was good, but that was because I picked it. Then came, "You want us to remove the wine label? We don't know how to do that. Here's a duffel bag to carry it home with."

Truly disappointing. I was glad when it came time to refuse dessert and I felt good giving them a tip that was even more mediocre than their service and food.


What was not disappointing was the live music. The trumpet, banjo, bass trio was nothing all that special, but they were professional and played quite well. They took requests and went table to table, and for lack of a better idea, I requested "C Jam Blues". The bass player was a cut-up. He immediately goes, "Yeah, C Jam Blues. Okay, what key?" But that request tipped them off that they were talking to one of their own, another jazz musician, and the bass player even invited me to sit in on his other band's rehearsal the next morning at 10:30. (I declined, as we would be well on our way home by then.) So, I enjoyed chatting with them, hearing some good music, and forgetting about the awfully average meal.

Mrs. S then informed me that the guide book we had told us not to miss the Mardi Gras exhibit, so that got us ushered through the hoity toity section of the restaurant (where I saw at least one bow tie and two white jackets, so yeah, keep them away from us riff-raff) and upstairs to the display. It was impressive enough to keep Mrs. S's camera continuously firing for the next twenty minutes.And I would say, if you do do Arnaud's, that yeah, don't miss the costume display. It's one of a kind, unlike the food.

I guess we can conclude the restaurant summary by simply saying, two out of three wasn't bad, and we had memorable experiences at all of them, so I would count that as a successful trip. I think Mrs. S agrees.

New Orleans Travelogue - Part 4: Did I mention there's music?

If you've ever wandered down Bourbon Street after dark, or even during the day, you know there is no shortage of music to be heard. You also know there is no shortage of touts trying to push you into their joint, or sometimes half-naked girls trying to pull you into theirs. Curiously, though, I actually found jazz pretty hard to come by.

When I say jazz, I mean jazz. On my first afternoon in New Orleans, Mrs. S and I went straight to the Music Factory music store. There, they have jazz broken out into several sub-categories such as: blues, traditional, vocal, modern, ... and such. They also have zydeco, New Orleans jazz (?), and a couple of categories that didn't make sense (to me). I relay this as a point of reference in that, in the city that may or may not have invented jazz, you can't really walk up to someone and say, hey, where can I go to hear some good jazz music, one - because there are so many places where one could go, and two - because they won't know what kind of jazz you are talking about (and you might not know, either).

So on our first night in the Big Easy, we cut to the chase and went to Preservation Hall. We weren't too keen on paying $10 to stand in a non air conditioned barn, but we figured we owed ourselves the experience. Plus since the band only does 45-minute sets, we figured that would be good enough.


Well, it was touristy, but I have to say, the band was very good and the experience was worth it. It was a sextet, with alto sax, drums, trombone, tuba, piano and lead trumpet. They sang a few songs, but mostly just played. You couldn't really hear the piano unless she (a Japanese woman no less) was soloing. But the sound was good and very, I'll say "traditional". Of course, they try to make money selling you nondescript CD's and by taking requests. I paid $5 to hear St. Louis Blues, mainly because I think I was the only native English speaker in the audience and it was the only song name I could think of that I thought the band could play. They seemed to appreciate it, though, and I was accommodated also with a piano solo. But it was hot and muggy, so when that set ended, we called it a night.

Here's me in front of the hall the next day.


We stumbled into some more live jazz the third night of our stay, but I'll leave that for my next post.

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 2: The Birthplace of America’s Music....NOT!

So, on the way to New Orleans, driving from Alabama, we obviously go through Mississippi. I was somewhat astonished that when we hit the state line, we were greeted by a sign that said, “Mississippi, Birthplace of America’s Music”. My very first thought was, “Does Louisiana know about this?”



When I hear “America’s music”, I think “jazz”. It is quintessentially American, like baseball, apple pie and all that...hey! All that jazz! So where does Mississippi get off calling themselves the “birthplace” of America’s music? Shouldn’t we define what “America’s music” means first?

Personally, I just don’t like such bold and broad sweeping claims. I think if I was governor of Louisiana or otherwise had some skin in the game, I might say something to somebody in Mississippi. “You’re full of it,” comes to mind.

Anyway.

Was jazz invented in Mississippi? I don’t think so. Was it invented in Louisiana? Probably not. So let’s clear this up: Mississippi may or may not be the birthplace of the blues. Maybe. Jazz and/or blues may or may not be able to lay claim to the title of “America’s Music”. Maybe. And jazz may or may not have been “born” in New Orleans. Maybe. Whatever the case may be, I guarantee you that the German and French tourists at Preservation Hall the other night were not in America to visit Mississippi.

Mississippi needs to come up with a better slogan, and it better not be, “At least we’re not Alabama.”