A Week in The Big Easy, Part Three

Okay, last one...

Day 6:

Today was another trip into the Garden District on the Magazine Street bus. After a few stops which included a guitar store and pawn shop (I didn't find anything of interest), we decided to again venture outside of Louisiana cooking and had a great lunch at Nacho Mama's Mexican Restaurant. It's worth repeating: it's really hard to go wrong with dining in The Big Easy.

Another goal of this trip was a return to Jim Russel's Record Store. While I don't own a record player, I had decided that some vinyl and sleeves might make inspiring wall decoration for my meager recording studio. There are a number of other stores in the city that sell vinyl, but none of them had them same vibe as the organized chaos of Jim Russel's.  While I missed out on the Jimi Hendrix album, I did manage to pick up a B.B. King album, a live Cream album, and a copy of Led Zepplin IV, which was another one of my early cassette acquisitions.

Following a second helping of the Storyville Restaurant's killer po' boys, we made our way to Woldenberg Park for the final stop Railroad Revival Tour.  My wife Denise had heard our local rock station running a contest for tickets to this show - headlined by folk-rockers Mumford & Sons - and we decided we'd guarantee ourselves attendance to the show. While I prefer the intimacy of small clubs to large outdoor stages,  the bands involved did put on a stellar show.  I don't consider myself much of a country fan, but I must admit I enjoyed the old-time Americana style of openers Old Crow Medicine Show (which included some guest appearances).  The second opener, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, have a musical style I can't figure out how to describe, but they were also neat to listen to.  Despite having nowhere near the roster of musicians of the large ensembles opening the show, Mumford & Sons managed to still fill the stage with their sound.  The encore saw every member of all three acts on stage - at least 20 musicians in all - and demonstrated that a jam-packed stage makes for one hell of a party.

Day 7:

We tried to fit a few more events into our last full day in the city.  The first was a tour of the New Orleans Rum Distillery. Having sampled some of Cuba's finest rum (an experience I can enjoy as a Canadian), I was pretty impressed with the distillery's offerings; their unaged white rum was one of the most drinkable white rums I've sampled, and their spiced rum was dangerously tasty.  Needless to say, some bottles came home with us.

After an excellent lunch at Magnolia Grill, we went for beignets at Cafe Beignet.  Beignets are a New Orleans staple, similar to a doughnut and covered in powdered sugar. We had tried beignets at Cafe Du Monde on our second day, but were later told that Cafe Beignet's version were much lighter and closer to the original recipe.  Between the two, I give Cafe Beignet the edge.  On our friends' good word, we tried Huck Finn's for dinner. As this would be my final dinner before leaving, I went full tilt on the Louisiana fare: a trio entree of Crawfish Etoufee, Gumbo, and Alligator Sauce Piquante with a side of cornbread. Magnificent.

Haunted Walks are fun; in addition to being entertaining, they often include great details about the history and architecture of the city. We've done them in Kingston and Ottawa previously, and New Orleans was the best yet. In addition to displaying an excellent knowledge of the cities history - both factual and paranormal - our guide Andrew was an absolute riot.

I was worried that on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz Festival that Frenchmen Street would be jammed, but The Spotted Cat once again had enough room to accomodate us. The New Orleans Moonshiners put on a great show (Denise had actually bought a copy of their disc at Ben Polcer's show earlier in the week, who is a member of the Moonshiners).  After a while, the smoke and perfume became too much for Denise and we headed out.  I wasn't disappointed by this for two reasons.  Firstly, I hadn't expected to be able to take in any music at all tonight, so just getting to see the Moonshiners was a treat.  Secondly, had we not left at that exact moment and been walking down that exact street back to our room at that exact time, I wouldn't have passed one of my favourite guitar players in the world, Jeff Beck.

I'm not a star gazer; I could care less about catching a glimpse of Brangelina, Nicholas Cage, or other New Orleans celebrity denizens. But walking by one of your most admired guitarists as he makes his way to enjoy some local jazz before headlining the opening night of the jazz festival still felt pretty damn cool. It also gave me a pretty good sense that if this is where Jeff Beck hangs out when he comes to town, I had been hanging out in the right place. To be clear, I behaved myself and walked on by; the man just came for the music, not to be accosted for an autograph or photo (neither of which I was concerned about anyway).

Day 8:

The final day, and nothing to much of note as we had to depart for the airport early in the day. After a last trip around the French Market for souvenirs, we stopped at The Marigny Brasserie for a quick lunch before saying our goodbyes to our wonderful hostess at the B&B and heading to the airport.


That's pretty much it. If anyone has questions about New Orleans, by all means, feel free to ask them in the comments; as you can tell, I enjoy talking about the place.