Since we hadn't been to New Orleans in about three years, and since D starts medical school soon and won't be able to have any fun (other than studying), and since Amtrak was running a special from Memphis, I reread A Confederacy of Dunces and we got on the train. Here's our homage to Ignatius selling weenies on the street in broad daylight (if you don't know why that's funny, read the book). This was taken from a window in the upper levels of the Cabildo, which I highly recommend taking a tour of if you're in New Orleans. You can see where they signed the Louisiana Purchase there, and it gets you out of the heat.
We hit a couple of standby favorites. Louisiana Pizza Kitchen and Mona's (any location--they are everywhere now. We went to the uptown location this time) are consistently good. We also had to have an order of beignets, of course. New places (to us) this time around included some New Orleans institutions--Johnny's Po'boys (which I had eaten at like many years ago), Palace Cafe, Mena's Palace, and the Commerce Diner were all in the mix. Rambla, the tapas bar next to our hotel, was also quite nice. We also took the bus to midcity up Canal and self-toured a Jewish cemetary and St. Pat's #1 before going to lunch at Cafe Minh.
A good time was had by all! It's good to see things bouncing back.