Happy 2019 to my thousands of followers!
We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday night to welcome in the New Year with great friends, food, and music. After some delicious Denny snacks – crab dip and braised short ribs in a new modern version of a pressure cooker – Denny and I saw the trombone player, composer, and band leader, Rick Trolsen, at the Dos Jefes cigar bar and music club. This is a very small place but always seems to provide excellent music.
New Year’s Eve in the French Quarter was predicted to be a bit of a zoo with all the college football fans in for the Sugar Bowl game on New Year’s Day, so we opted for a Bywater/Marigny ramble rather than our traditional afternoon French Quarter Ramble (FQR).
We started at Saint Germaine (a new bistro) with excellent goose fat fries and chicken liver pate. From there the ramble proceeded to Mimi’s, which had a great tapas menu but a kitchen that wasn’t quite ready to cook. Not to worry – a short walk took us to the gorgeous St Roch market.
St Roch was originally opened as a market in 1875 and was updated several years ago to one of the more elegant food halls that I’ve come across. The ladies enjoyed 
some fresh oysters.
We passed this entertaining house on the walk, complete with fake snow – not quite in keeping with the pleasant 60 degree temperatures.
The afternoon finished at the Tin Roof bar atop the Pontchartrain hotel on the way back home to get ready for dinner. This is the hotel where Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” and the rooftop bar provides a great view of downtown New Orleans. The hotel was having a Veuve Clicquot champagne event that the ladies enjoyed.
New Year’s Eve dinner was at Chais Delachaise with Denny, Anne, Thom, Libby, Alex, and Laura. This was a great pick by Denny that provided us with a relaxed and comfortable spot to enjoy an unhurried meal with friends. I started with a French Old Fashioned that I loved – what makes it “French”? – I’m not sure the menu just said a little “je ne sais quoi”. The mushroom bruschetta were yummy and so was the meat and cheese platter. Then I enjoyed my lamb burger, accompanied by a very nice Burgundy that Thom helped to select.
After dinner everyone headed back to Denny and Anne’s home to ring in 2019 – we don’t look too tired for a bunch of old fogeys do we? Ok, you don’t need to answer that now that I look at the pictures again.
New Years Day was a sleepy one for Denny and me, mostly spent on the couch with a book, a fire, and college football bowl games. Diana, Anne and Laura were more adventurous, making their annual visit to Pascal’s Manale for happy hour oysters. They were kind enough to bring dinner home for the sleepy boys.
We were honoured to be invited to celebrate Jack and Mason’s 16th birthday with them at Commanders Palace on Wednesday. Denny always says that they better get good jobs to support their fine dining tastes.
The soups at Commanders are always amazing. We sampled turtle, lobster bisque, gumbo and at least one other. I loved the stuffed quail dish that I tried for the first time and of course the piece de resistance was the bread pudding souffle with whiskey cream sauce.
After a pleasant afternoon nap, Denny convinced us to make a trip to the Circle Bar to see the Iguanas. I’d seen this group that was very popular in the 1980s on my last trip and was looking forward to a reprise. They did a great job of entertaining the crowd in the tiny living room of the Circle Bar – a bit of a smaller crowd than they played to at jazzfest back in their more popular days. The music is like a combination of Los Lobos and the Buena Vista Social Club – very unique and different. Alex, Thom and Gary joined us for the show and then a stop at Domenica pizza on the drive home. Diana was a real trooper to hang in there with all the boys for so long – it probably felt like she was dealing with her five younger brothers again.
Sadly, our time in New Orleans came to an end on Thursday. We wrapped up the visit with a perfect French brasserie meal at Couvant in the Eliza Jane hotel (a gorgeous new hotel with a great patio). This is one of several new French restaurants in New Orleans (a pleasant trend) and another excellent Denny recommendation. We shared chicken liver mousse, steak tartare, and mussels a la Normande, all accompanied with some very AAnice French wines available by the glass.
Alicia picked us up at the airport and we were back home by 
10:30pm. Friday was pretty much a full work day again for both of us after some good time off for the holidays. We were back to our normal routine on Saturday and Sunday with morning workouts and crossword and coffee sessions. I enjoyed the Cowboys playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday night very much albeit way more stressful than it needed to be. We’ll find out after the Eagles game tonight if the Cowboys play the New Orleans Saints or the Los Angeles Rams next week. Either one will be very much an uphill battle.
I mentioned earlier in the post that the Iguanas reminded me of a cross between Los Lobos and the Buena Vista Social club. Here’s a sampling of both – can you imagine what the combination might sound like?
Well, add something like this…
To something like this…
And maybe you get something like this…