New Orleans/Baton Rouge

Wow - good to know about the restrooms.

Thanks for all the help everyone. We're looking forward to checking out many of these suggestions.

 

I might be late, but eat at Mother's.

That's all I got.

 

anyone pitch "pascale's manale" in n'awlins yet? best barbequed shrimp in the world. gumbo, the shrimp and the key-lime pie or bread pudding w/coffee might be my fave meal. certainly cracks the top 5. for non-steakhouses, it's right there with "joe's stone crab" in miami. 8)

 

What he said.

 

All I can say is this:

I've been to Pascal's Manale.

I've had their version of BBQ shrimp.

It's OK, but the way I make it is better.

Not to mention that the table/dining-room housekeeping at PM is disgraceful.

 

So how was the trip?

 

If you have two days free in Baton Rouge, leave.

 

The trip went great.

With only one day in New Orleans, we tried to pack in as much as possible. Steak, your advice was great as we pretty much followed the trail you'd left. The tip on parking at Jax Brewery was priceless as that really was such a convenient place.

Started off by taking in the morning with beignets at Cafe du Monde, enjoying some coffee and people watching. Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the quarter, eating way too much good food and seeing the sights. Our first experience on Bourbon Street was seeing a female street person dressed as a clown pissing in the middle of the road. At about 5 p.m.

From there we went and checked out Tulane's campus before coming back down to the Quarter and grabbing dinner at the Bourbon House. Good food there. Spent the rest of our time in New Orleans soaking up the Bourbon Street experience at night. Even ran into Tim Robbins, who was there for about three minutes walking the street before so many people recognized him that the kid he was with (probably his since he was about as damn tall as Robbins) said "lets get the hell out of here" to avoid the many people trying to get pictures.

Also did try to muffaletta at Central Grocery. Simply amazing.

We didn't have a ton of free time in Baton Rouge with the concerts lasting from about 1 p.m. to 10:30, 11 on two of the days we were there. Really the only freet ime we had was Memorial Day, so we checked out the old state capitol, the U.S.S. Kidd, and more of LSU's campus. Tried to check out Mike the Tiger's habitat but he wasn't in there.

And whoever asked about the old dorms in Tiger Stadium, yes they are still there. Pretty cool to see. Someone had broken one of the sealed up windows so I could see through into one of the rooms. Pretty funny thing to have built in there.

We did get a chance to eat at Chimes and man, the seafood platter was glorious to an indecisive guy like me. Plus, I fell in love with Abita's Purple Haze. Now I just have to find out how to get it out here in the Pacific Northwest.

All in all, a fun trip. Thanks for the great suggestions on New Orleans because they sure made things about 100 percent easier on us trying to figure out where to go.

 

Nighttime security might be tighter these days, but when I was in college there (mid to late 90s) it was pretty easy to sneak into the dorms (as well as Tiger Stadium itself) at night. Once you found an unlocked door, which wasn't hard to do, you had the run of the place.
You want to see creepy? Wander around that place when no one else is around and it's dark and quiet. It's like walking through an abandoned insane asylum, or stepping into a horror movie.
There's some offices scattered around but it's mostly abandoned. Just lots of empty rooms, some with furniture and some without, open doors and flickering fluorescent lights, all with the eerie quiet that 1 a.m. brings. Because the stadium was built in sections over the years, there's also a lot of dead ends. It's like there was some sort of plague scare and they told everyone to evacuate.
Add the "are we supposed to be in here? Are the cops coming?" elements and it's even worse. The first time I went in there I about shit my pants.

 

Awesome, man. Glad I could help.

 

Bump.

So, as many might know from my "I'm hired!" thread, Miss L and I plan to get married — finally — on April 28. We're leaning heavily to making New Orleans our honeymoon destination, knowing in advance that it's going to be hot and that we have to have the beignet's at Cafe du Monde, that you don't go five blocks away from Bourbon, etc. We've been there, separately, before.

My question is: Can you get a better table downstairs at Galatoire's if you slip the maitre de a $20 or a $50? I mean, if I'm going to pay for a 5-star meal, I also want a 5-star experience. What I'm saying is, what's it going to cost to get one of the prime people-watching (and people-watched) tables?

We're planning on doing a haunted tour and a swamp tour and maybe a cooking class. Other than that, lots of drinking and dining and sweating profusely. And, you know, honeymoon stuff.

 

Joe, I don't know the situation at Galatoire's at all, but why don't you call them and see if they will set something up in that regard? In my experience, people do go out of their way to be nice to honeymooners, and a happy couple is good for any restaurant's atmosphere. Can't hurt.