Forgetting My Cares in the Crescent City

Damn, I love New Orleans. Every time I go back, I'm reminded of how I first fell in love with the city and get crazy ideas about moving back, buying a little cottage in the Marigny, fixing it up and having seafood boils on Sunday afternoons.

I flew in Thursday night, to be greeted by a bunch of New Orleans ex-pats, now living in places ranging from Portland to D.C. Immediately went and checked into my hotel on St. Charles and can I get an amen for staying in one's own hotel room? Amy and I hit Casamento's uptown for dinner because you know I was DREAMING about my oyster po-boy all day! So, Casamento's is the greatest place on earth. It's been open for about 90 years, the owner is the son of the original owner and they don't even have deep fryers, they fry everything by hand in deep, ancient pots on the stove. I love it.














Anyway, as we were throwing down on some expertly fried crab claws and oyster po-boy (the gumbo was fine but nothing special), who did we see in the kitchen but our beloved Ms. Judy! Amy and I worked with Ms. Judy at Olivier's back 1998 and she was like our adopted New Orleans mamma. She came running out of the kitchen screaming "my babies!" as we all hugged and cried and the rest of the restaurant looked at us like we were crazy. Did I mention that I love this place? Because I do, deeply so. I haven't even lived there in 6 years but give me two hours and I'll run into someone I know!

Next we hit the bar at the Pere Marquette hotel to meet the lovely Rebecca and company. Chris was bartending, although that's kind of a bastardization of the term when referring to him. He's more a mixologist, gives talks at the Smithsonian and whatnot, he's the real deal. Anyway, I had three magnificent drinks there, the most delicious concoctions I have ever tasted. The first was a mojito-style cocktail but it was less minty and more ethereal and served straight up and very cold in a martini glass. Then, since I heard Chris makes the world's best Pimm's cup, I had to have it. But he only had enough for one so I graciously split it with Amy. Holy hell, have you ever had a Pimm's cup anywhere else? You won't want to after this! It had fresh blueberries, and raspberries, and, oh my! It was heaven. Finally, I had the Gin-Do, which is muddled with crystallized ginger and lemon and I don't think anyone should drink anything else ever again.

Friday morning we got up and decided to make reservations at Bacco for lunch, but wanted to start at Redfish Grill with oysters. Rebecca and I have this tradition of eating oysters for breakfast and I for one can never eat too many oysters. Within minutes of being seated we had a dozen BBQ oysters and a Redfish Grill lemonade. By the way, I remember loving this drink, it ain't all that. Tasted like cheap, pre-mixed lemonade and too much Razzmatazz. The oysters were another story, perfectly plump and seasoned, fried and tossed in that addictive mixture of butter and hot sauce and dunked into blue cheese. Oh my word. Then there were the raw oysters and I liked them better than the ones at Casamento's because they were more petite. I don't like the big ones that look like elephant boogars.

I think I said previously that I wanted a Pimm's cup at Napoleon House. I would like to strike that from the record. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Anyway, these cocktails at lunchtime were making me sleepy so we moved on to Bacco, where we ran into Stovall, who used to work at the French Quarter bar at the Ritz. I swear, you can't spit in this city without seeing people you know. So Stovall fixed me up with an espresso and we worked our way over to a table. Sadly, they did not have any carpaccio and carpaccio at Bacco is another Laila/Rebecca tradition PLUS I was stuffed from all the bread and oysters at RedFish so I opted for just an order of shrimp remoulade for my lunch. It was good, but I think the shrimp was a mite overdone. At that point, I didn't care because our old boss, Steve, swung through the doors to start his dinner shift and it was hugs and smiles all around. Not to mention that I saw another friend who I haven't seen since 2001 strolling down the street. This city is truly crazy. For dessert, I wanted Steve to make our old signature cocktail, the Lady in Red. It sounds kinda gross but I love it eternally; praline liquer, chambord, vodka and cream. Alas, there was no praline liquer at the bar and just when I was about to give up, that genius Stovall subbed Nocello and the rest is history. Oh yeah, and Rebecca told Steve to comp our check to, I don't know, say 22 cents? And he did. I love him almost as much as I loved my Lady in Red.

After a good, solid three hours of eating, Rebecca and I moved down to OZ and drag queen bingo. Now, DQB used to be hosted by the inimitable Bianca del Rio. The hurricance displaced her to NYC and it hasn't been the same since. HOWEVER, Laura informed us that Bianca was back in town for a guest appearance!!!!! I have to say though, she wasn't as funny as she used to be but I'll blame that on her being out of practice? What was great about it though was that Laura showed up after work and it's been forever since I've seen her. She was just as fabulous as can be and after DQB, we went back to her place in the Marigny to plot dinner plans. WE ended up staying close by and walking around the corner to the cozy, neighborhood Schiro's cafe. I was about to order the caeser with fried oysters but Rebecca told me that Schiro's got their samosas from Sara's, a great Indian place uptown. So we split samosas and vindaloo and saag paneer and doused everthing with tamarind chutney and it was fantastic. Then there was the achingly tender peach upside-down cake, which is made in-house by a friend of Laura's who is a baker extraordinaire. I think she mentioned something about a lemonade-chambord cake he makes or maybe I imagined it? Anyway, that cake was good!

The night ended in one of my favorite ways; sitting on the stoop with my girls and Laura's amazing neighbor, Mr. Billy. He's lived next door since 1971, but in New Orleans his whole life and he had these great stories about going with washbasins to catch crawfish that would just run across the road in season. After he came back from the Army and the government had constructed the I-10, that didn't happen anymore because they ruined the fragile ecoysystem for wild crawfish. I love stuff like this and Mr. Billy is an endless source of just such tales. He promised to have a crab boil for us on Sunday and by golly, he really did buy 40 pounds of crab the next day! Anyway, this is getting long so I'll return for the rest of the story ina few...Don't run away though because I have yet to tell you about Saturday and Sunday, which were perhaps the two finest eating days of my life. Wait, there have been a lot of those, well, I have a flair for hyperbole, what can I say?