Kinda cool…
We’d planned to make it over to the St. Roch cemetery last night to do the Day of the Dead thang, but wound up getting sidetracked in typical New Orleans fashion. To start with, we couldn’t find a St. Gerard candle. Then we wound up walking around The Quarter, largely because there’s comparaatively no one there except contractors and locals and a smattering of tourists. After a beer at Maspero’s, we wound up on Chartres outside K-Paul’s, and realized we’d never been there because the place is always so jammed with tourists. There were only like two people in the place at 6pm.
It’s this way all over town. There plenty of well-known places that have only very few customers and even fewer employees, so it’s a great time for the locals to play tourist for a bit and for budding Paul Prudhommes to get major-league experience in a big-name kitchen. I’m not saying the big-name joints are always the best places to eat, but now’s a damn good time to make that decision for yourself. And if you’re a local, they’ll give you all kinds of special treatment, like the guaranteed reservation card we got last night. It’ll be great next time we have some friends in town.
On the way out, we even ran into ol’ Paul hissownself, sitting astride his scooter and welcoming passers-by. We stayed about an hour and the place was less than half-full when we left.
It’s an unusual time to be here — both good and bad. For one evening, this was the good side.
Hey guys:
Is anybody maintaining a list of places that are open down there? I was down in BR this weekend and really wanted to surprise my wife in Atlanta by swinging through the city and grabbing some Central Grocery, but I have no idea if they are open; when they are open, etc. Nobody answered the phone when I called Sunday night, so I didn’t figure it worth the drive in case they weren’t open.
I really want to support NOLA and get down there as often as I can. It would be very helpful to know what’s available these days.
Take care.
I went through NOLA today just to check out my grandparents old home on Coliseum and stop and visit them at Lafayette Cemetary. Very strange to see almost no one there. Looks like the Garden District did OK.
Here is a list of open restaurants:
http://www.nomenu.com/RestaurantsOpen.html
This will only be free through Nov. 11th, but the writer says he will accept any payment for a subscription.
Janet
From Seattle…
A “checker” from my local grocery store just returned from visiting her parents in NO. It was the first time she had seen them since the hurricane. I don’t know her, but she needed to talk about it and she had a steady stream of interested and compassionate customers that passed through her check out stand. A different variety of “retail therapy”. Her main comment: “you can’t possibly imagine….”
I can’t…I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the devestation. I hear first hand stories and wonder how I would deal with it. I guess you don’t really know until you are in the middle of it.
For those of you that ARE in the middle of it: keep going.
Love to you
Drury