So some people have napped, some have rested, and some were silly enough to fritter away their time blogging! But now it's time to reconvene in the parlor. Clare has found us a wine bar with a fascinating menu and we're off to yet another New Orleans neighborhood!
The Bachanal is in an area that used to be known for buying drugs and guns! I meet a young woman and her friend who turns out to be her second mom (we all know how that works!) and they are friends with the owner. That''s how I came to know this. It's a two-story affair and if you buy a bottle of wine you can drink it with your dinner. They also have a full liquor license, so you can get anything else you'd like to drink. The menu is quite unusual and it takes us a long time to figure out how everything works! You have to go downstairs to the cashier to place your order. You get a number on a stick to put on your table, kind of like some fast-food joints, except that if you've placed several different orders you have no idea when things will appear! At that point it becomes like a tapas restaurant. Plates begin showing up at the table and we just pass them around, so everyone gets to sample pretty much everything, regardless of what you ordered!
This turns out to be perfect! Every plate comes with interesting accompaniments but the main foods were things like hanger steak, pork shoulder, confit chicken leg, bacon-wrapped dates, gazpacho and bucatini pasta! See how different those are? Amy and I had tried to order the leafy green salad with smoked trout, but that wasn't available.
I ordered a bottle of Reunion malbec from Argentina which was a shot in the dark that really hit the target! All the red-wine drinkers loved it! Paul brought Jackie a ginger ale that was actually made from ground up ginger! It you love ginger it was superb. Jackie didn't think so and no one else ever wanted to try it!! I loved it!
All the food was divine! And it was even better that Clare was able to join us! Lots of chatting and laughing and passing of plates until we could hold no more!
Downstairs is mostly outdoor seating and that's the best place to hear the band. You can also stand on the balcony upstairs but you can't really see them from there. Jackie and I go down and I get a couple of photos. Soon people are tired of standing and we ask Clare if there is somewhere that we can go to both sit and listen to music. Well, not really!
She takes us to a quiet little bar that is walking distance and has a juke box. Another round or two of drinks and talking and even a bit of dancing (!) and we've all had it for the night. Clare goes home to recoup for another day of slam-bang action and we head back to our beckoning beds. Jackie drives us home and parks on the street, so we don't have to pay the hotel the $38 valet fee! That does mean that we have to move the car by 9:00; but we plan to meet downstairs by then anyway.
Boy does that bed look inviting! all six feet of it! (I haven't even unmade the other side!)
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