Since I consider New Orleans as my second home, this article will have more pictures of New Orleans. However, before anything else, here is my video of Easter in New Orleans. The first song, “La Vie en Rose” is beautifully performed by one of my favorite singer, the Vietnamese legend, Bach Yen. This is her samba version of “La Vie en Rose”. The second song is also an Edith Piaf’s standard, “No Regrets”. This version is done by the European trio, Bad Boys Blue. The quality of this youtube version is no where near the original wide screen version that I created.
SO HOT AND STICKY
The Monday before Good Friday, I began to create my Easter bonnets. It was time to retire the two bonnets that Gary and I had worn for the last two years. I went to the Jumbo 99 Cents Store near my house to stock up on glue guns, glue sticks and a ton of silk flowers. I used one of the purple “pimp daddy” hat from Halloween to create Gary’s 2008 bonnet. For my bonnet, I used a Chinese fold up straw hat that I bought in San Francisco’s Chinatown for one dollar. Ian chose a regular straw hat as his base. I also made an extra bonnet using a Vietnamese rice hat.
In my tiny art studio (my computer desk)I managed to burn my left ring finger twice on the same spot with two hot sticky glob of boiling glue leaving a beautiful scar. It was quite comical sleeping with a finger encrusted in dried up glue and a huge dolop of aloe vera gel on top of it to soften the glue while I sleep. However, the beautiful bonnets made the incidents worth the pain.
THE STICKY FLOOR
Gary and I were the first of the five friends to arrive in New Orleans on Good Friday. The rest were to arrive on Saturday. Ian drove from Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis drove from Houston and pick up Stella in Lake Charles, LA, on the way to New Orleans.
Gary, Ian and I stayed at the Staybridge Suite located on Tchoupitoulas at Poydras. The hotel room is spacious and has a full size refrigerator, a full size microwave, a dishwasher, a stove, pots and pans, dishes and cups. Harrah’s Casino put us there for a very cheap price and that was a good thing because this place can use some cleaning up. The tile floor in the kitchen felt sticky so I used a wad of wet papertowel to clean the tiny area.
On the plus side, the hotel had complimentary breakfast every day. The spread included scramble eggs, sausages, fresh fruits, danish, waffle, cereals, milk, coffee and juice.
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FOUR LEAF CLOVER
While our friends were still on the road this Saturday morning, Gary and I stopped by the Clover Grill on Bourbon Street for our obligatory hamburger platters. We always enjoyed this tiny eatery for its ambience and simplicity. Next to us at the counter was a mother and her two childrens who ordered way too much food and had to take the club sandwich to go.
If you go there for breakfast, please order the three eggs ommelette. This is the fluffiest thing I have ever seen.
THE OSCAR GOES TO …
Gary, Ian and I walked around the downtown/warehouse district and to my surprise, a street (don’t know the name) that I have walked by at least a hundred times before revealed an abandoned theatre. I looked through the metal fence and took a few pictures and was amused at the fact that despite taking at least 10 photos of this street prior to this day, this was the first time that I noticed the old Dix Theatre. My friends may recalled that for last year “Brunch” invitation, I used a picture of a small alley with a walk way connecting two buildings. The theatre is in that alley.
The three of us ate lunch and returned to the theatre later and found that the metal fence was opened and a young man was sitting in a blue pickup truck parked on the street. We asked him about the theatre and was told that it was a movie set and that he was a security guard. He let us take pictures.
THE FALL FROM GRACE and A NEW LOVE
Through out the years, I praised my favorite restaurant over and over. Cafe Masperos on Decatur was the first restaurant I went to in New Orleans and the food has always been good and cheap. This trip the food fell apart. This is one of the busiest time New Orleans has experienced since post Katrina and I think that the restaurant could not handle the extra spring-break crowd that wrapped around the block at 2:00 PM. My beloved mufalleta sandwich was dry and lacked the tanginess of the olive dressing that I had come to love in the last 18 years. Ian was born and raised in Metarie and he was craving for red beans sausage and rice. The beans had no flavor at all and needed a heavy doze of salt. The tasty sausage unfortunately was cold. The seafood platter has always been one of the best in town, but on this Saturday, the fried food was cold. To make matter worse, the price has gone up. This favorite place of mine gave me the worst food experience on this trip. I will give it one more chance when I go back to New Orleans in the next few weeks.
I found me a new love on this trip. My new love is at the restaurant, Drago’s. This established eatery opened its new location at the Hilton Riverside a few years ago and this was my first time at this place. My new love is not the restaurant, but a dish that this restaurant created and served. The CHARBROIL oyster dish at this place put me in a trance that caused me to forget everything else (I barely remember the good fried seafood platter). Plump louisiana oysters on the half shell topped with butter, parmesan cheese, rosemary and other spice and herb and then charbroiled to perfection leaving the cheese to crust around the shell and then placed on a platter swimming in melted butter which diners use the crusty baguette to mop it all up.
Lewis’ friend, Stella, is from New Orleans and her father used to sell his oysters to the family that own Drago’s. Stella told me that beside eating the oysters, we must use a spoon to scrape out the cheese that encrusted the oyster shells to truly enjoyed this dish. I scraped it with enthusiasm. In the past, I have witnessed Lewis’ reaction to certain delicious food and it was like he was at the height of passion. This time, I know how he feels.
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THE GAY EASTER PARADE
Stella and Lewis left their Hilton Hotel early Sunday morning to attend Easter service at a church on Burgundy street. Ian stumbled in our hotel around 8 AM after a night of partying. The three of us ate the free breakfast at our hotel and rested until 2 PM when we met up with Lewis to go to Cafe du Monde. Stella decided to stay at the Hilton and rest. We all showed up at her room to show off our Easter bonnets before we made our walk along the river bank.
We ate our hot beignets and drank our cafe au laits and then headed out to Bourbon Street at St. Ann to catch the parade which starts at 4:30 PM. While we waited for the parade to start, we quenched our thirst at Oz, a gay club on Bourbon Street. It was nice to see the wives and their straight husbands hanging out at the club with the rest of the revelers. We also met up with many people we see on the parade route through out the years. This included two young ladies who always show up in colorful wigs and a young couple who passed out confetti eggs and chocolate Jesus candy bars.
The parade started promply at 4:30 PM. Led by a group of motorcyclist, the 15 minutes long parade rolled from Louis Armstrong Park onto St. Ann Street and turned onto Bourbon Street. The parade was filled with drag queens in giant bonnets riding on horse-drawn carriages.
Once the parade was over, we walked along Bourbon Street and was greeted by many other revelers. A group of young Japanese students felled in love with our bonnets and asked us to pose with them for pictures.
Lewis rejoined Stella who was resting at the Hilton and headed out to their nightly jazz club adventure at Snug Harbor, a jazz bistro on 626 Frenchmen Street. Gary, Ian and I ate at the Harrah’s Buffet and spend the rest of the day in our hotel room watching TV.
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A TRIP TO THE VERSAILLES
The Monday after Easter, Ian abandoned us and went to stay with his aunt in Metairie, a large suburb west of New Orleans. This is Ian’s hometown. Gary and I checked out of the Staybridge and checked in at the Hilton Riverside where Lewis and Stella were staying. Our room at the Hilton had a wonderful view of the Mississippi River and we watched all kind of boats and ships traveled up and down the river.
On Tuesday, I drove the remaining four of us to the Versailles, a small community east of New Orleans on Chef Menteur Highway. There are many Vietnamese living in this community and they were one of the first group of residence to return and rebuild the Versailles after Hurricane Katrina left the place almost completely destroyed.
There is a bakery/restaurant there named Dong Phuong Bakery. This place makes the best lady finger cookies in the world and unfortunately, it was closed on Tuesday. I drove around and stopped at Ba Mien Restaurant (meaning Three Regions). Like many of the Vietnamese restaurants in this area, Ba Mien no longer have just Vietnamese clientelles. Since post Katrina, most of the restaurants in this area are Vietnamese and this means that people from all race, all economic levels now eat at these Vietnamese restaurants.
We ate really well with dishes ranging from Pho noodle soup to vermicelli with grilled pork and shrimp and a platter of authentic (rice paper style) Vietnamese eggrolls. Stella and Gary had Vietnamese ice coffee for “desert” and Lewis and I bought freshly fried banana fritters and Vietnamese beignets (fried sesame seed dough) at the grocery store next door to the restaurant. Ba Mien Restaurant was opened around 2000 and it suffered flood damage five feet hight (you can still see the flood line) from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I am happy that many of these small restaurants like Ba Mien are opened and that the clientelles are diverse.
On Tuesday, between lunch and dinner, Gary and I went to a small convenient store at the corner of Royal Street and St. Phillips Street to buy gumbo to go. Adjacent to the Flanagan’s Pub, this small place is run by a young, attractive and feisty Vietnamese woman. The front of the shop has a small food stall which locals come to buy various delicious items to go. The food available this day was gumbo, baked chicken, fried catfish and boil shrimps. Our gumbo was delicious even after the long walk back to our hotel.
TRIP BACK HOME
Gary and I headed back to Houston on Wednesday but Ian, Lewis and Stella stayed in New Orleans until Friday. We are all planning for the next trip. I had to cancelled my June trip to Orlando and sell my Margaret Cho’s tickets for a concert there on ebay. This is because a few days before this article got posted, I was chosen as a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention on June 7 and 8 in Austin. I will record and report the process of politics for all to read and see. I may make a short trip to Chicago to meet with friends coming in from Swizerland in a few weeks. I have relatives living in Chicago and if I do make it up there, I will try my best to visit.
Until Next Time.
Carl
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