Thursday, August 15
For breakfast we headed over to a place that Google said had good reviews and reasonable prices called the Commerce Restaurant. It’s a small place where locals tend to eat on their way to work. The menu is rather small. We ordered eggs. They came with grits and toast / biscuits. The food was simple and tasty, the service was good and the prices were reasonable. Even the coffee was good. Total cost: $13.25. Credit cards are accepted.
Our first destination for the day was the so-called Degas House. We learned that Edward Degas, the famous French Impressionist, lived in New Orleans from October 1872 until March 1873. Degas had not yet achieved fame as an artist and accepted an invitation from his uncle in order to get some new perspectives. During his time in New Orleans he created 18 paintings. Most were family portraits or scenes about the offices of his family’s cotton business.
The tour starts with a showing of a 30 minute piece that was produced by PBS on the subject. Afterwards a guide takes you on a tour of the neighboring house. Today there are two houses next to one another but in those days it was a single house. In the late 1800s a real estate developer split the house in half and moved on half to the adjacent lot. The museum now owns both houses. The tour concludes in the first house with a look at the room that Edward stayed in and used as a studio when he visited. The houses are in the process of being restored. None of the artifacts or artwork is original. The houses are also used as a bed and breakfast and breakfast is available to the general public. The tour focused on the Degas family, their life and their business enterprises. It was not a lecture on art per se. Still, it was very interesting and worthwhile.
(Half of the Degas House)
Visiting the museum costs $29.00 (we got a Groupon for $25.00) and the museum and breakfast together costs $50.00 per person. Reservations are required.
For lunch we walked to a restaurant called Dooky Chase’s. Leah Chase, the chef and owner who was known as the Queen of Creole, is a notable figure. She was an icon in the civil rights movements. The restaurant was one of the few that allowed race mixing, which was illegal at that time. Leah Chase remained an active participant in the restaurant until her death on June 1, 2019 at the age of 96.
There is a buffet that has fried chicken, baked chicken, spicy sausage, a small salad bar and some side dishes. If you want any of the seafood dishes you have to order off the menu so we ordered one buffet and one shrimp creole. Each dish was about $20.00. It’s probably sacrilege to say it but the food just wasn’t very tasty. We even tried the peach cobbler and the praline bread pudding for dessert. Neither were worth the calories. The one item that was actually quite good was the carrot soufflé from the buffet. Total cost: $46.72. Credit cards are accepted.
By the end of lunch we had had enough of walking in the heat so we took an Uber over to the Museum of Art. It’s a three story building that’s about three miles Northwest of the French Quarter; it abuts City Park.
The first two floors contain mainly paintings. They start at the Renaissance and move through to the mid 19th Century. There are some very nice works on display. The third floor contains works from the modern era as well as a wide array of items from different parts of the world. The section on African masks and ritual items was particularly interesting. Cost of entry was $15.00 per person. Credit cards are accepted.
Fun Fact: The museum acquired one of the paintings that Degas completed during his stay in New Orleans. It is on permanent exhibit at the museum.
(Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas by Degas, 1872)
The park outside the museum contains an enormous sculpture garden that is laid out across manicured paths and running water. Because it was so hot and we were getting tired we saw only a small part of the park, but the part we saw, was really interesting. We will definitely have to come back someday and see the entire thing. Cost of entry: Free!
When we got back to our hotel room we found that there was nowhere to plug in our phones or computer. The base of the lamps had a plug in the morning but it was no longer there. Had they changed the lamps in our room while we were out? I called down to the front desk…
Me: Is it possible you changed the lamps while we were out today?
Clerk: Yes, we’re upgrading the furnishing in all of our rooms.
Me: Now there aren’t any places to plug in our phones?
Clerk: (silence)
Me: Can you bring us an extension cord?
Clerk: We don’t have any extension cords.
Me: What are we supposed to do?
Clerk: (silence)
Me: (Hanging up the phone as loudly as possible)
In the end we unplugged some of the lamps in order to use those sockets. Unbelievable!
Friday, August 16
Google helped us find yet another interesting place for breakfast. This place, P&G Restaurant, was very similar to the place we tried yesterday. We ordered the same thing. Total cost: $15.58.
We killed a little time by walking around the French Quarter until the clock struck 9:15 am. Then we met a free walking tour that would take us on a tour of the most famous cemetery in New Orleans: Saint Louis #1.
The cemetery was established in 1789 by a Spanish Land Grant. Originally the space was outside of the city limits and was at least twice the size it is today. Over the years, as the city expanded and the land became more valuable, the size was cut down and many of the bodies were relocated. Today there are walls around the perimeter and it’s administered by the Catholic Dioceses. It’s still an active cemetery and, for the right price, existing burials can be relocated so you can be buried alongside some very famous people…
- Marie Laveau. Welll known voodoo queen from the 19th Century.
- Paul Morphy. Recognized as the first world chess champion.
- Nicholas Cage. He purchased a space there and built a large monument in the shape of a pyramid. He intends to be buried there some day.
- Homer Plessy. The plaintiff in the famous supreme court case Plessy vs. Ferguson from 1896.
- The Musician’s Tomb where many of the founders of the blues and jazz are interred.
- And so many others
Our guide had some interesting ideas about where to have lunch. We had intended to eat at Emeril’s NOLA but opted instead for a place we’d never been to before: a very famous French restaurant named Antoine’s. Normally Antoine’s would be a lot more than we’d be willing to spend but she said that they had a lunch special so we went to investigate.
The menu in front of the place said that you could have a three course lunch for $20.19 and that the cocktail of the day was just $0.25. Sold! We were shown to a very nice table, were served warm bread and butter and ordered. Deborah had the charred oysters, fried chicken and praline bread budding. I had the charred oysters, shrimp creole and key lime tart. The cocktail of the day was a lemon drop martini. The menu said we could order a maximum of three and, over the course of the meal, we did exactly that.
Fun Fact: Antoine’s is the restaurant that invented Oysters Rockefeller.
The oysters were large and plump. We’re not fond of raw/undercooked seafood but these were done to perfection. Served on the half shell they had been charred in a salamander along with butter, garlic, parsley and parmigiana cheese. We each got three and savored them. We even used the bread to mop up anything left over in the shells. They were absolutely delicious.
(Charred Oysters)
Next up were the main courses. The fried chicken had been deboned and came with macaroni and cheese and collard greens. The chicken was very good and the greens were terrific. The shrimp were nice and tender and the creole sauce was just what a creole sauce should be. It was served with popcorn rice, which is something local to the area.
The key lime torte was very good but the praline bread pudding was the perfect end to an excellent meal. According to the waiter they run this lunch special, with different menus, all year long except during Mardi Gras. Total cost: $46.26 including six drinks!
We spent the rest of the day walking around the French Quarter. The hotter we got the more time we spent in the shops. On the way back to the hotel we picked up a grilled shrimp po’boy from Mother’s, a well known shop. That was dinner – and it was very good too.
(The New Orleans Mindset)