What's there to do in New Orleans?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Drop any other plans and go have dinner at Jacques-Imo’s. There can be a bit of a wait for a table, but it’s well worth the trouble. It’s about a $20 cab ride to the other end of the Garden Distrcit, but again - well worth the trouble.

We ate there when we were there last month (for our wedding dinner) and it was honestly the best meal of my life, and I’ve had some good ones. The alligator & shrimp cheesecake appetizer is crazy good.

Also, there’s aan off-the-radar (non-touristy) grocery store in the quarter called Verti Marte. They have a deli in the back and they serve something called the “All That Jazz” po-boy that’s incredible. Give it a try if you get the chance.

I could go on and on but those are my two biggest suggestions.

22

Verdi Mart also has the “Shrimp Philly” which is a po-boy fixed like a Philly cheesesteak, but with grilled gulf shrimp instead of the steak meat…

Words can’t describe how amazing that sucker tastes—One of the best things I have ever eaten anywhere, ever.

23

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Keep them coming!

I finally have access to a computer so I can type out a (somewhat) lengthy reply.

We already hit Cafe Du Monde which was an interesting experience and fun to people watch. But I’m a coffee snob at heart and the chicory wasn’t doing it for me. There’s plenty of good coffee in the city so I’ll keep searching.

We’ve snacked on alligator, crawfish and muffaletas which are awesome and I’m definitely going to have a second one before I’m done.

We went through the open market and saw this amazing Chinese artist who paints to order letters of the alphabet to look like various animals and objects and got those for my niece and nephew.
On the way home we found Meltdown which is a popsicle place that just opened 9 months ago. We let the owner know that she made the latest Food & Wine and she nearly did a backflip in the store she was so excited.

We’re still debating back and forth about the haunted tours. On the one hand, the kitch factor and sheer silliness of it has got to be amusing. On the other hand, it’s pretty much just wandering up and down Bourbon street which we can probably do well enough on our own.

MPB, don’t worry about the tipping. We’re tipping quite well and it’s mainly because the servers we’ve found have been really fun, fast and professional so they’ve been great dining experiences.

On Wednesday I’ll probably rent a car so we can hit the swamp tour and go out to some of the other suggested places in this thread.

Thanks again all. Plenty of time to see everything!

24

Regarding the haunted tours… We were thinking of doing one but it turned out that the hotel we stayed in, the Place d’Armes) was a stop on most tours and we were able to watch and listen to the guides from our balcony. They were so cheesy, and overdramatic, that we were turned off of them completely. Didn’t help that each tour had a completely different story about the hotel.

25

Some of them are really good however. I went to college in New Orleans (Tulane) but I never did a haunted tour until New Year’s Day 2000. The older guide was very talented and dressed like someone out of the original Twilight Zone series. I am a Doper and I know that some of what they say isn’t real but a lot of it is.

New Orleans had one of the most eccentric and storied histories in the modern world and you can still see that to this day if you spend a significant amount of time there. I have had more strange things and usually great things happen in New Orleans in a month than the rest of everywhere else I have been combined in total. A good walking tour is worth it although I am still trying to work out the story of how a mysterious Middle Eastern sheik set up refuge in the French Quarter and then the whole compound died in some kind of mysterious sword fight with a few hundred people dead without anyone noticing much going on. A lot of the other stuff is well documented though but Southerners tend to have a talented storytelling skill that makes people from the lesser climes think the believable is unbelievable.

26

The Clover Grill is an excellent place to get a really campy breakfast - just don’t talk back to the servers 'cus they will school you!!

I did a mystery tour (started in Jackson Square, wandered around the French Quarter) and I loved it. I suppose I don’t care too much if it’s all accurate - for me the point was more to get spooked out (and I was!!)

If you’re into different kind of stuff, Esoterica Occult Goods is kind of funky.

27

Shoot, just drop some acid and walk in and out of art galleries in the Quarter all day long. It’s a great time! :smiley:

ETA: I’m told it’s a great time! I wouldn’t have any personal experience doing this, certainly not within the last few years, tho, as I haven’t been to New Orleans recently. I mean, I’ve never done drugs in New Orleans, right, not that you can prove. That wasn’t me. That was other kids. I wasn’t even there. Not recently, anyway. :cool:

28

I live in Baton Rouge and take the occasional trip to New Orleans. I actually enjoyed the haunted and vampire tours quite a bit. We actually stayed mostly away from the partying portion of Bourbon St. the entire time. We had a great tour guide, though. He was a professor at Tulane and had actually portrayed Jean Lafitte in several History Channel shows. I would imagine the tour would greatly depend on the quality of the guide. I would suggest doing it and hope you get a great guide.

A lot of great eating places have been suggested already. We usually just walked around until we found a place that looked good and went in. I haven’t been disappointed once. I would suggest Yo Mamma’s burgers, though. Specifically the peanut butter burger. It is amazing.

29

Just follow your nose!

30

I always tell people to hit Jacques Imos because it’s tasty, fun and gets them out of the quarter, but to get the full experience they need to take the street car!

Go to the end of Canal and take the car ferry over to Algiers. It’s free for pedestrians and gives you a wonderful view of the city. Just outside the ferry terminal you can grab lunch at the Dry Dock Cafe.

If all goes right, I should be there next weekend!

31

I’ll give Jacques Imos the “me too, me too.” Awesome. And if you take the street car you’ll pass right by Camilla’s Grill. Get the pie and ice cream at Camilla’s.

I just spent a week there while my wife was there on business (read: I had a week to just wander the city by myself). Cemetery tours are cool. I’d recommend going with Save Our Cemeteries.. Also check out Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. It’s a cool old bar with no electrical lights. The place is lit by candles. (truth is there’s electricity, as you’ll see because there is a tv over the bar, and the cash registers are electric, but it’s a very cool place to have a drink.

32

It’s a cool place to have a drink. (Literally. When I was there last June it was a wonderfully cold refuge from the heat outside.) But my friends who lived in New Orleans and I only had one beer there, then went over to Checkpoint Charlie’s. We just didn’t feel like paying five bucks for bad mass-market beer. I’ve been to Lafitte’s several times, and will go there again. But it’s just not worth it to hang out there.

33

Resident of N.O. suburbia checking in.

Audubon Zoo came back almost immediately – it was totally back up by spring 2006.

The oil spill shouldn’t affect N.O.'s tourism very much, if at all. Unfortunately, there is that perception that, somehow, the two are linked.

New Orleans proper is not a beachfront destination, and it’s not even all that close to actual wetlands. Any swamp tours (which aren’t even that much of a piece of the tourism pie) someone may go on will be in swampland many miles from where any oil spill is washing up.

34

I hope you are right, but I am afraid that the perception will indeed impact the New Orleans tourism industry—The reports from the Gulf spill are a nightmare for the image of all Gulf Coast destinations, and the seafood industry is going to have a hell of a tough time convincing folks to want to eat Gulf seafood for a long time to come, assuming it is even available for market.

35

No worries here – there’s a ton of freshwater seafood to choose from that’s fished/farmed inland.

36

I know that and YOU know that, but does the average family in Spokane WA, who is watching the national news, seeing all the images of oil-coated beaches and listening to the interviews with Louisiana shrimp-boat owners saying that their way of life will be threatened for decades to come (because of the spill) know that?

I don’t imagine you could find a single member on SDMB (or anywhere else for that matter) who wants for New Orleans to thrive and prosper more than I do—I LOVE New Orleans, and hope and pray that it will continure to rebuild, rebound and remain a city that is celebrated worldwide…

37

We just returned from there a week ago.

There’s a food tour that’ll give you a bit of history on the kinds of food there and you get sample of food from a number of local restaurants.

Muriels (corner of Jackson Square) was good food. We ate twice at a bar/restaurant called Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Restaurant at 701 Tchoupitoulas. Young crowd. Crawfish boil on Wednesday for $4 a lb (a pound turns out to be a lot of bugs).

If you’re there for the food, too, there’s the New Orleans School of Cooking that’ll give you a 2.5 hour class own cooking Nawlin’s food. Not very expensive, either.

Beignets: In our opinion, Cafe Beignet was better than Cafe du Monde (and less crowded).

Find a cemetary or two to walk through. They’re very different and kinda cool in their own way.

The St. Charles St. trolley is more interesting than the Canal St. one. The St. Charles street line is the original, creaking, humming, rattling trolleys while the red ones are modern and air-conditioned.

Oysters will be hard to come by, I suspect. While we were there, we heard that the chief oyster company there, supplying most of the restaurants, returned from fishing that day with a grand total of 2 bags of oysters.

IMO the “Hurricane” is overrated for flavor. It’s got a kick, though. Lafitte’s Blacksmith shop uses real juice in theirs while it’s inventor, Patrick O’Rielly’s, uses a mix (Kool-aid) now.

Walk the garden district - (take the trolley). There’s a (government) tourist information center on the east side of Jackson square that’ll give you a free guide with house descriptions. They’ve got similar hand-outs for the french quarter, too.

The car ferry is free for pedestrians.

Groceries can be gotten from Rouses Groceries, Corner of Royal & St. Peter.

Good Sandwiches and really good ($$) Gelato with unique flavors from Davina’s (sp?) on St. Peter’s street between Chartres & Royal

38

One more thing…If you happen across Doreen Ketchensplaying on Royal St or in Jackson Square - stop, listen, and buy her CD.

She’s amazing. We heard her singing and thought she sounded pretty good so we stopped to hear more… Then she stopped singing and started playing her clarinet and we were blown away. Seriously… she’s absolutely incredible.

She showed up on last night’s episode of “Treme” also, as a member of Antoine’s airport band. We were thrilled to see her on there, and she had some good lines too!

39

Food, in addition to all the other suggestions:

Rio Mar, in the Warehouse District (not too far from Mother’s and Mulate’s). They served a family-recipe slow-roasted pork with avocado and plantains that I want as my final meal if I am ever on Death Row.

Skip Mulate’s, though. Disappointingly cheesy and touristy.

40

Oh, and Mother’s isn’t too great these days, either!