How to do New Orleans in corduroy.
Corduroy is great. It’s a heavenly thing that I wish I could wear everyday. I’m so thankful for it. How could anyone deny the smoothness of such a charming fabric?
As indebted as I am to the cloth of Jesus’ favorite people, this isn’t about corduroy at all. This is about your New Orleans curiosities.
Where do you stay?
What do you do?
What should you eat?
So many choices. So many wrong choices. Here’s a quick story about a right choice, an overnight adventure in the French Quarter.
Where do you stay?
There are a plethora of places to stay. You might want to be close enough to smell Bourbon Street, or far away from there – Uptown along a parade route, or, in the Bywater, for a swig of Southern Williamsburg. As long as I’ve been in New Orleans, I’ve never experienced the city from the French Quarter. Boodad and I decided to try something new, so we packed over night bags and headed down Royal Street in the fanciest Tahoe Uber for a two-day staycation.
Our destination of choice? Hotel Monteleone.
Hotel Monteleone is the center of quarter happenings. Though there’s a natural transient air to hotels, the air in Hotel Monteleone felt ready and exciting and like home.
The view from the hotel rooms stir up all the Mufasa-Simba feelings, wherever the color touches is within a few blocks and there is bound to be songs and dancing all around you.
Royal Street, Hotel Monteleone’s backyard haven, has so much artistic movement and pedestrian friendly entertainment. If you have happy feet or kind of really enjoy singing with strangers, you could spend all day or night connecting with all the random.
*Please note, staying inside is always awesome too. In the case that a bed is more appealing than walking amongst the vibrant elements, Hotel Monteleone’s room comfort is A1.
What do you do?
Sometimes adults lose their minds for the simplest jovial juvenile joys, like:
Two pink Starburst
Free t-shirts, just because (not in exchange for your email address and/or social security number.)
Or
A bar on a moving carousel.
Boodad and I skipped around the Quarter for the better half of the day and decided a drank would be a nice post-lunch, pre-dinner snack. So we danced our way back to Hotel Monteleone, enjoying every inch of the Royal Street sounds and scenery and worked our way to the Carousel Bar.
I’ve always seen this place in passing, wondering why the smile of each and every patron looked as if Mathew Mcconaughey was giving an Oscar winning bartending session. The Royal Street view of this Mcconaughey dream always looks as if life pauses and smiles are the only charge for a break from reality.
In we went, and I knew immediately I was donning the same smile I’d seen through the clean windowpanes in the lounge seating. Not because Mathew Mcconaughey was there, but because of the high bar stools that fashioned the sides of the boldest, brightest, adult carousel I’d ever seen. Also, the trail mix and the Sazerac. Always Sazerac.….to the uninitiated a Sazerac is the fanciest way to drink whisky.
Boodad and I made friends, we laughed loud, and we watched the bartenders mix and entertain every adult spinning in excitement as their dangling feet swayed to the best live jazz.
*This is important. Bars are the essence of New Orleans. You want to find and connect with your place of adult beverages. This will dictate your next move throughout the evening (or day,) the wrong choice will sway you to Bourbon St., the right choice will connect you with good food.
What do you eat?
Food, the reason why you came to New Orleans and one of the main reasons why New Orleanians celebrate their city.
Good Food.
You can mess up. There are places that will ruin your taste buds. Criollo NOLA isn’t one of them.
Life made easy. Carousel Bar is directly connect with Criollo NOLA, ending the day with dinner that would make any food baby coma worth a post meal pass-out.
Boodad and I twirled back to our room after a few Sazeracs and Pimms cups (few = 9 (no shame, no shame.)) I slipped into a satin co-ord and Boodad kept it light with linen, because linen. We went to Criollo and feasted on lamb and steak and duck and all the meats(no shame, no shame.) While the food was prepared for the likes of God, Martha Stewart, and Obama, the staff, James and Keri, were now fast friends. James and Keri may have been the most awesome set of individuals I’ve eaten with in New Orleans. There’s nothing more than feeling like food connects you to the people that cook it and serve it. What might have taken anyone else an hour to finish took Boodad and I almost three. We felt in tune, in touch, and loved on by the Criollo staff.
Perhaps our experience was the carousel- sazerac-pimms-Criollo combination, but that feeling, the feeling of complete elation and satisfaction is what happens when you do New Orleans right.
Where do I start?
There are so many things to do and see in this city. Boodad and I’s adventure around the Hotel Monteleone is one combination. Here’s a pintrest I made for all of you that may need starting points for your NOLA combination:
Happy wander-dranking-eating!