Way downtown, fooling around

Today we drove into town from Bayou Lacombe, and visited the Mikes in Metairie. Afterward, we drove down through Metairie and got on Canal Street and drove down into Mid City for lunch at Mandina's. We ate at the old restaurant where the building has been renovated and the place was packed with patrons. When we first arrived at the place, there were a ton of folks outside the place and a sheriff's car was parked at the corner. I couldn't tell if the place was really good or if the place was being busted. After we drove around block once and found a parking place in the parking lot next door, we ultimately had a real NO experience and enjoyed our lunch.

The shrimp and oyster po-boys were amazing. A whole one, which cost around $19.00 was made up from an entire loaf of French bread (about six feet of bread) and all the fried seafood and other garnishes you would need on the sandwich. I didn't know that at the time I ordered, but soon saw a whole loaf ordered next to our table. I ordered a half a loaf and three feet of sandwich was more than enough. Can I get an amen?

Our waiter was the quintessential New Orleans waiter. Cindy ordered an unsweetened ice tea. He took her order and looked at me. I ordered a "sweet tea" and he slowly dragged his fingers on the sugar packets on the table and informed me that they didn't serve "sweet tea." The slow indication to the sugar packets was a perfectly subtle communication. It contained a perfect amount of sarcasm, without being too sarcastic to appear caustic and affect his tip. I loved it.

By the way, I have to be perfectly clear about this, there are certain elements to a perfect shrimp po-boy: fresh, lightly breaded shrimp (cracker breading is perfect); fresh french loaf; fresh lettuce and tomatoes (not too damn pink); light mayonaise and heinz ketchup and a full bottle of tabasco. Don't substitute with Crystal pepper sauce. Crystal pepper sauce is good for what it is and works well with a lot of foods where subtlety is not important. But the combination of a few small drops of tabasco with good ketchup and mayonaise are superb.

Anyway, we went down in the quarter and bought pralines (praw-leens) and ate a few pralines (praw-leens) and bought some local art and bought some coasters decorated with the replication of old street signs showing the original spanish street names, walked around the area around the French Market and the Cafe du Monde, enjoyed the profusion of idiotic tourists walking senselessly through the quarter (sometime right down the center of the street, again, senselessly), made mental notes about where to eat in the future (Napolean House, Tujages), found the downtown Joseph Banks (did not stop, thank you very much, even though I need a new pair of khakis), drove up to and down Rampart Street on the edge of the quarter, back across Canal Street, down to St. Charles, followed the trolley tracks through the Garden District, past the zoo and Tulane and Loyola and the Hotel Ponchatrain (sight of my first date with Cindy) and left and out Carrollton to I-10 and on back to Bayou Lacombe. Quite a trip.

I think we are filled up on shrimp po-boys. Of course, that's only two. They are just perfectly sufficient. Kind of like Grouper sandwiches in Florida (no cheese).
I guess when you eat three feet of sandwich, twice, it tends to fill you up.

By the by, I include as the title of this blog a quote from "Columbus Stockade Blues" which seems to fit what Cindy and I did today. Of course, we were in New Orleans and not Columbus, Georgia. But you figured that out, I'm sure.