Food, Food and even more Food!

So now I’m beginning to get really excited about my holiday. I have been researching places to eat as I am determined to get some fine dining in while I’m there. I obviously already knew of a number of places – Commander’s Palace, Galatoire, Arnaud’s, K-Paul’s, Emeril’s to name but a few – but which ones to choose? Which ones are the BEST? I started by leaving a message on a NO foodie forum asking for recommendations, and generally got a pretty good response and some interesting opinions. I also found a rather good online guide and compared their gradings to the recommendations. From there I looked at the websites (where available) of the restaurants and have finally made my choices. Now I just have to try and make reservations. Unfortunately only one of the places is taking online reservations at this time and because of it being Halloween I am expecting trouble getting into some of the restaurants as they really are some of the best in the world. So my next task is to work out time zones and find a time that I can call them to reserve a place. Hopefully they might all be able to squeeze me in as I’m dining alone.

Anyway I’m sure you’re all dying to know which restaurants I’ve chosen so here goes:

Monday Brunch – Brennan’s
Tuesday Evening – Bayona
Wednesday Lunch – Commander’s Palace
Thursday Evening – Upperline

I’ve checked out their menus and I’ve already provisionally chosen the food that I want, assuming it’s on the menu and nothing on the specials board grabs me more *LOL*. Better still the change I have been saving in my bottle this year will cover the cost of at least 3 of the meals. Breakfast at Brennan’s is a real must do when visiting New Orleans, although I don’t think I could face their food at breakfast time which is why I’m going for an 11am reservation. It will be nice to have a nice relaxing day after the rush of the festival weekend. Bayona and Upperline just look like wonderful restaurants, highly recommended by everyone and the menu’s were great, and I just HAD to go to the Commander’s Palace after going past it last time, and because it has just re-opened, obviously specially for my visit *LOL*. I promise the 25 cent cocktails had nothing to do with my decision (no really they didn’t … well not much anyway). Now I just have to find something to wear!

Once my reservations are made I can plan the other things I want to do for the rest of the week. I am definitely intending to visit the Zoo and was hoping to go to the Aquarium, although I am unable to confirm that it is open at the moment. I found out last night that whilst they managed to get through the hurricane with no problems – they had excellent emergency plans, the extended period without electricity meant that their generators ended up failing and they lost almost all their 10,000 fish, which was obviously a hugely devastating blow to all the people who had worked so hard to keep them alive during the hurricane. At the current time the website is unavailable so I shall be waiting till I get there before I find out whether it’s open. As it’s only a couple of minutes walk away from my hotel it won’t be a hardship to check out. I am also considering going on the Hurricane Katrina tour. I had originally thought this was a bit ghoulish, but talking to locals, many of them seem to think the tour is a good idea as it shows just how bad things really were (and how much still needs to be done to get NO back on her feet). Also a portion of the tour money goes to one of the Katrina disaster charities, so it helps with the rebuilding. I also need to schedule in some shopping time - there are a lot of shopping places in NO and I intend to visit them all!

Of course I have already found the location of the nearest internet café and that’s only a few minutes from my hotel as well – in the Riverwalk Mall (ooh shopping and surfing). *LOL*

Lynne and I went for a lovely meal to The Ship at Upnor on Tuesday night. I had never been to that area before and although I could only see it in the darkness it seemed like a really nice place. I shall definitely have to visit again in the daytime as it would be nice to go to the castle. I would also definitely recommend the pub as the food was delightful. The two of us had a lovely 3 course meal and a bottle of wine for £60, an excellent price as the meal was well cooked, well presented and wasn’t ‘nouvelle cuisine’- you got a decent size portion of everything.

As if that wasn’t enough food, tonight I’m off to meet Mrs H3 for a little something over at Bluewater. I’m also going to get my holiday money and a last few little bits and bobs. I am still trying to find a replacement pair of jeans for the ones that have a now HUGE hole in. Damn Evans for stopping selling the one pair of jeans that actually fitted me!

I am still stumped on the packing though, not aided by the fact that the 10 day weather forecast site I’ve found is showing that temperatures in NO are currently about 15 degrees higher than the usual temperature for the time of year. Also instead of the dry spell (usually less than 1” of rain in Oct/Nov) there are heavy thunderstorms almost every day. So apart from my umbrella and the pink stetson I shall be waiting till the last minute to pack. Still no sign of the magic suitcase either …