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 3: The tenuous connection

When we stopped at the Louisiana welcome center on our way to New Orleans, we took a few minutes to browse through the many tour and destination brochures they had displayed there. I came across one that said Cemetery/Voodoo/Jazz across the top.



Cemetery voodoo jazz.

Although I consider myself relatively more knowledgeable about voodoo than the average American (I sleep on two different kinds of gris-gris - how about you?), other than the fact that several noted voodoo practitioners called New Orleans home, I'm not sure what the connection is. And while the above-ground, mausoleum style cemeteries are well known, when you think about it, there is really nothing so different between a New Orleans cemetery and a "regular" cemetery in Anywhere USA. You still are six feet from the bodies, there just isn't all that dirt between you and them. So I consider the connection between cemetery, voodoo and jazz to be tenuous at best, and I don't think the best way to appeal to tourists is to throw everything you've got all at them at once. Besides, I imagine the following conversation.

So, are you a swing era musician, or do you like be-bop?

No, man.

Okay, post-bop then, maybe fusion?

No.

Free jazz?

No, man.

What then?

Cemetery voodoo jazz.

If this is the new standard, other tourism promotional possibilities that come to mind are:
San Francisco: Gay Alcatraz Sea Lions
Los Angeles: Hollywood Tar Pits Jack Nicholson's House
New York: Empire State Building Broadway Mugging
Phildelphia: Liberty Bell Cheesesteak Rocky Balboa
Orlando: Mickey Mickey Mickey
Las Vegas: Magic Gambling Neon
Cleveland: Rock 'n Roll LeBron Rust
Seattle: Rainy Boeing Salmon
Alabama: Cottonfield Plantation Whatchou lookin' at boy?

But I digress.
So, part three of my travelogue is finished and I still haven't written about any music. But it is coming, probably with the next post. Y'all come back now, y'hear?

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.”

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 1: Food and Edible Insects

Obviously, this blog is about music, but on my recent trip to New Orleans (July 6-9), I ate REAL good, so I’m going to write about that first.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Dinner first night: The Pelican Club. The place was practically empty, so we got first rate service and attention, which always makes the food taste better. I had steak, Mrs. S had fish. I picked out a nice Marlborough white that went with both. Excellent.



Lunch second day: Po-boys in the Riverwalk food court, shrimp for him, oyster for her. Cheap, fast, and good. I was able to eat everything despite having snacked on crickets (“chocolate chirp cookies”), wax worms (in cinnamon and brown sugar – see photo), and meal worms (in olive oil and hot pepper) at the Audubon Insectarium. (Highly recommend that destination. It’s fascinating.) All the edible insects were very tasty and even though Mrs. S almost threw up just watching me, I’ve seen enough of Andrew Zimmern that it really didn’t bother me. They allowed you to eat as much as you wanted, so I had three or four of everything. No reactions or anything, just good eating. I even bought a scorpion sucker to munch on at a later date.



Dinner second night: Stella. Got the full seven course meal with wine pairings to celebrate Mrs. S’s birthday. Place was packed but service was good and the meal was absolutely unsurpassed. We’ll never miss revisiting here whenever we come back.

Lunch third day: Muriel’s at Jackson Square. I thought it pretty average, but Mrs. S loved it. I had a middling, muddling crawfish etoufee, and Mrs. S had goat cheese crepes. She definitely out-ordered me.

Dinner third day: Arnaud’s. Average-to-below food, terrible service. Menu was funky and they wouldn’t sell you some stuff on it, at ANY price, if you didn’t order it the way they wanted to serve it. (Yeah, stupid.) They had a banjo trio playing jazz music, which was alright, but you really pay for the atmosphere. I would say unless you are dying to feel and be treated like a backwater tourist, this place is a definite pass.

I ordered Samuel Adams at EVERY single restaurant. Not one carried it. I drank Abita as a rule, which is better than your run of the mill Bud’s and Coor’s, but really not all that great. I’m writing a letter to Jim Koch (Chairman of Boston Brewery) to let him know about this wide open market with no penetration yet.