Saturday in New Orleans

Having discovered that the secret to surviving New Orleans might lie in not starting to drink until oh, say, sometime well after breakfast, I passed on the breakfast mimosa at the Cafe Pontalba, while Kurt had his bloody mary. This proved sage, as I continued to shop-hop while Kurt napped later that afternoon. The crab cakes benedict was delightful, as was Kurt's cajun omelette. Breakfast is proving to be quite the phenomenal meal here.

After breakfast, we took a carriage ride tour of the French Quarter. The driver was friendly and funny, but good gravy, did he have a thick accent! It was a longer than normal tour because some major street construction popped up overnight. Yes, that's right, they chose to begin a major street construction project on a Saturday, in the middle of Jazzfest. Brilliant. Cars and carriages were jammed all throughout the Quarter all day and into the evening.

Next, it was on to lunch at Yo Momma's. When we saw the Peanut Butter Bacon Burger on the menu, we just couldn't resist. Boy howdy, was that ever a great call. We should not have been surprised. Peanut butter: yummy. Bacon: yummy. Burger: yummy. Why not put them together? And let me tell you, when you ask for a burger medium rare there, they take it seriously. It was falling apart pink in places. Mouth-watering.

Saturday was shopping day, so we did a little shop-hopping after lunch, but Kurt decided he needed a nap. While he napped, I shopped strong. Vive la commerce!

When Kurt awoke, we met up and went in search of a bar that features Irish music. We found it, but alas, it wasn't the same as the old O'Flaherty's that Kurt so misses. We had a half & half while we listened to a set of music, and then decided it was time to go eat dinner.

On the way to Acme for a repeat of Friday's crawfish bliss, we stopped into a candy/fudge store and picked up some white chocolate macadamia toffee, and a couple of turtles. Deee-lish. At Acme there was a line to get in, but we decided it was worth the wait. It was. Kurt had another pound of boiled crawfish, plus a plate of grilled oysters, and a side of andoille sausage. I had the Peace-Maker po-boy, which is deep-fried oysters and deep-fried shrimp with Tabasco-infused mayonnaise. We also had another couple of Abita Strawberry Harvest beers. We really need to see if we can find this beer back home. Seriously.

After dinner, we wandered some parts of the Quarter where we had not yet been. During this trek, we came across a restaurant that was grilling oysters and boiling crawfish right on the sidewalk. I thought Kurt's head was going to explode. We may try to find those guys again before we leave. Eventually, we ended up at a small, quiet Irish bar, Fahey's, that caters mostly to locals, and we finished out the evening with a few games of darts. We split the games, 2-2. Kurt also managed to split a dart flight, which is pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

- Colette