Starting the day with Beignets and Mardi Gras World.
(Friday morning.)We woke up and took our time leaving the BnB. I looked up the bus times, but we decided we’d just wander our way through the neighborhood towards our first destination. Cafe DuMonde. We walked along the water front, hoping to find a view of the mighty Mississippi, but were thwarted by uncrossable levy boundaries. We joked about my lack of coffee, to the extent that when we wandered past the PJsCoffee Roastery, we considered stoping to see if they sold coffee to drink. I wanted to hold off until we hit the iconic Cafe DuMonde. In the Daylight we retraced our steps through FrenchmenStreet, and down down Decatur. As we walked, shopkeepers encouraged us to check out their wares. Someone handed us a sample of pralines that were warm, sweet with a little bit of a nutty chew. It was a revelation worlds away from the ones we had the night before at the Praline Connection. At the cooking class we took on Saturday we would learn why.
We finally made our way to Cafe DuMonde:
We got there and found that there was a line. Despite a crowd under the green awnings and a line of folks waiting to get in we were seated swiftly. In some ways they are the shining example of efficiency. They only sell a few things, cafe au lait, beignets, orange juice and hot cocoa. They serve what people want, what they are good at and no more. The service is also crisp, and they take cash only. The beignets were fluffy and covered with powdered sugar. The underlying dough wasn’t very sweet but with the powdered sugar it paired well with the cafe au lait.
The efficiency made the experience feel a little less genuine though. Instead of lingering over coffee in a relaxed fashion, I was too aware that there was a line and the hovering servers looking to turn the tables for the next set of tourists.
We perused a set of tour brochures as we ate our breakfast. We decided to take a City/Cemetery tour, and a tour of MardiGras world , plus Mike booked us on the Steamboat Nachtez for dinner Saturday night. First up? Mardi Gras world.
Mardi Gras world is in a warehouse down off the Mississippi river. It is a working art studio, storage facility and event venue. The Krewes of Mardi Gras don’t own their own floats, they only lease them from year to year , with Mardi Gras world’s artists helping recycle, restore and recreate the floats from year to year. For example, what is a hobbit hole this year, becomes Shrek’s hovel next year. The Krewes own the underlying trailers, which are worth up to 80K. Krewes have at least 14 floats in each parade, some holding as many as 40 people with their beads, plushies and other tokens. (The trailers even have bathrooms because float riders are often stuck on the floats upwards of 8 hours. )
We started with a piece of King Cake,
a short video on the history of Mardi Gras and the Krewes, and then a chance to walk the Prop shop with our guide. It was overwelminjg to say the least.
We saw a lot of familiar figures:
And even got to try on a few props ourselves:
We even saw how they transition on theme to another.
We could have stayed for hours looking at what they were working on.
From there, we called the Mardi Gras World Shuttle and asked them to take us back to the Central Business District, where we headed off to Huck Finn's to meet our Cajun Encounters City and Cemetery Tour guide John.
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Food and Service in New Orleans: I’m talking a lot about food. Thats going to be a constant thread throughout this trip. One, New Orleans is known for food. Two, I’m still a food blogger at heart. We’ll get more in depth into what the food of New Orleans is and the differences between Cajun and Creole in my next post. I will note a couple of things though. Cajun/Creole food dominated. We saw 1 Indian restaurant, no mexican, very little generic fast food (a couple McDonalds and 1 Arbys), I know there is a Vietnamese population down there but didn’t see any Pho or Vietnamese restaurants either. It’s likely because we stuck to downtown mostly , but it did provide me a contrast with the food in Seattle. We’re much more of a melting pot of food influences, and you can easily find most any cuisine under the sun.
So while you can find any food in the world in Seattle, you can’t find New Orleans Style service in Seattle, Portland or anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. We found white tablecloths, attentive waitstaff, and effusive hosts at every restaurant we visited. Even if we were just popping in to grab a drink and use the bathroom, we were well treated, offered waters and checked on, instead of being ditched in the Pacific NW Passive aggressive fashion. It seemed like they wanted us their eating at their restaurants. In Seattle, I’m not sure that’s always the case.