Thursday, August 26, 2010

Oh, The Places You'll Go! - #3

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down a not-so-good-street.
  ~Dr. Seuss

Continuing our day on a more positive note, our spunky tour guide Rose dropped us at Johnny's Po-boy in the French Quarter for a hearty meal before our afternoon tour. We had a lavish 15 minutes to scarf down our soup and sandwiches.

Joey ordered the delicious Catfish Po-boy (basically a New Orleans sub sandwich but with more interesting ingredients).


Michael and I enjoyed the lunch special: 1/2 a Shrimp Po-boy and a cup of gumbo.

Our afternoon tour guide, Joseph, picked us up at Johnny's and whisked us away to the River Road area about 45 minutes from the French Quarter. There are dozens of Plantations along the Mississippi River Road, but not all have been restored. We visited two Creole Plantations:

Laura Plantation:

Laura Plantation is a historic sugar plantation built in 1805.

The entire home and grounds have been beautifully restored and the history of the plantation is quite colorful.


The plantation tour of Laura included an authentic slave house on the property.


Interior of Slave house:


After leaving Laura, we drove 5 minutes down the road to possibly the most spectacular of the restored plantations, Oak Alley Plantation


We entered through the side of the property where there are many wonderful live oak trees.




But the real beauty of the property is the quarter mile of giant live oak trees, believed to be nearly 300 years old.


The house is a classic antebellum Greek-revival style. The picture below is the side of the house.


Below is the entry to the house from River Road:


The front of Oak Alley Plantation:



Above: Kari Medusa... I think this one is Michael's artistic interpretation of what he thinks of my hair :'(

Below: Joey is trying to figure out why his Mint Julep does not, in fact, taste like mint... at all :'(


After our tours we returned to the hotel exhausted.

Later we headed to Chef John Besh (of Next Iron Chef, Top Chef and Treme TV fame)'s newest restaurant Domenica, conveniently located in our hotel. We only had Joey's new graduation gift camera on this trip (Canon EOS 7D) and he would not let me use the flash, so the pictures are more "Joey's style".

Above: Joey at Domenica

Below: me on about my 10th glass of iced tea

Below: my favorite appetizer, heirloom tomatoes, garlic bruschetta, arugula & burrata cheese.

Above: Spicy Lamb Meatball Pizza

Below: Goat Cheese Tortelloni

Below: Michael's plain jane spaghetti bolognese (which was delicious, like everything else)

And finally, definitely one of my weaknesses... a glorious 14 oz. ribeye with asparagus and porcini butter


and on that note--adieu.... for now.

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