For restaurant reviews and music listings, see http://www.neworleans.com/. I like Tom Fitzmorris, a local food critic who writes for this site - his reviews are well-written and informative. They have a search engine that tells what musical acts will be playing in which venues on which dates - see http://www.neworleans.com/cgi-bin/oracle/hs.cgi?search=CAT&Category=LOCALS:Bars%20Nightlife%20Music%20Listings
http://offbeat.com/ is also good for music listings. It’s the on-line version of a free paper devoted to the music scene in New Orleans. You can pick up copies of the paper once you’re in the city.
Bourbon Street is famous, but unless your sole objective is to
get bombed, you should explore the rest of the city. The French Quarter is easy - it’s small and flat, so you can walk everywhere.
My favorite restaurant in New Orleans is Uglesich’s, at
Baronne and Erato. It’s a lunch-only seafood place in a
bad neighborhood - the St. Charles Streetcar will take you within a couple of blocks of the place. Some of my other favorites are Mr. B’s, Jacques Imo’s (far outside the quarter, but easily reachable by streetcar), Gamay, Palace Cafe. Mother’s is good if you don’t care about atmosphere.
For jazz clubs, I like The Praline Connection in the warehouse district, and the Palm Court Cafe. Both places serve food, but it’s mediocre by New Orleans standards, so you’d be better off eating elsewhere. Preservation Hall is a lot of fun - it’s the only place where you’ll hear unamplified music.
Some of the record stores in the French Quarter have free, live in-store performances. There are a lot of these during Jazzfest, but I believe they happen year-round. My favorite record store in New Orleans is Louisiana Music Factory at 210 Decatur Street in
the Quarter - their web site shows that, on May 31 there will be three different bands performing there. Louisiana Music Factory specializes in music from the state of Louisiana. There web site is http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/ Click on the link that says, “Jazz Fest 2003 Live In-Store Schedule” - it lists other in-store performances, as well. The Tower Records in the French Quarter also has free in-store performances - you should be able to find these listed in OffBeat magazine.
Cemetery tours are fun. I went through the one in Metarie (a suburb of New Orleans) a few years ago. They don’t bury people in New Orleans because the water table is so high, so they use tombs instead. Some of them are quite elaborate. There are cemeteries in New Orleans proper - the guidebooks all say not to go into these by yourself, as they are druggie hangouts.
Another interesting (and eerie) place is Blaire Kern’s Mardi Gras World, across the river from the French Quarter. It’s where they build the parade floats for Mardi Gras. The floats are so elaborate that building them is a year-‘round occupation. They give a pretty good tour for $13.50. The best part is the room where they keep the parts from previous years’ floats - all the spare heads and other body parts lying around makes it creepy. See their web site at http://www.mardigrasworld.com/main.html
The pictures from my trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival last year are at http://users.rcn.com/swazoo/Jazzfest/
