Easter weekend

My girlfriend and I didn't have to work on Good Friday, so we took the opportunity to cross something off our New Orleans bucket list: lunch at Galatoire's.  This was an experience.  First, they don't take reservations for lunch in the desirable downstairs dining room, so one has to wait in line.  Second, a system has evolved in which people who want to eat lunch but don't want to wait in line themselves for three hours pay homeless people to wait in line for them.  Frankly, I have conflicting thoughts about that system, but waiting in line and drinking mimosas sounded like fun, so that's what we did.  We arrived at about 8:30 and just made the cut-off; only one group behind us managed to get a table for the 11:30 lunch sitting.  So we stood in line, observing Bourbon street come to life, drinking breakfasty drinks from the Old Absinthe House down the street, and making friends with the group behind us (mostly used to live here, now live in Denver and come back for reunions).  Then, the lunch.  We told our server Peter that we were newbies, and he gave us the dope: a quick lunch at Galatoire's is two hours, and some parties will stagger out at around a quarter to five.  We started with drinks (a very nice rose and an excellent Tom Collins) and then did our best to eat our way through the menu.  I am going to confess my surprise: sometimes you might expect an old guard restaurant to coast by on its name and former glory (and from what I hear, that's the case with Antoine's), but my god this was a good meal.  We had oysters en brochette (I don't know how you make oysters wrapped in bacon and fried so delicate, but they did it); shrimp remoulade (better than Arnaud's); turtle soup (different than Commander's, but as good; less emphasis on the turtle, more emphasis on the vegetable ingredients, maybe); crab and avocado salad (oh my god).  For the main course, I had grilled redfish meuniere amandine, and it was divine; Brigette had the crawfish etoufee, which was impeccable from the bit I tasted.  Oh, and we had the cauliflower au gratin, which was insanely heavy but I couldn't stop eating it.  Finally, we had the key lime tart with chantilly cream and a mango sauce; the crust was a little hard to deal with, but I still liked it very much.  All that with a bottle of wine and another round of cocktails at the end (a pretty good brandy milk punch), and we rolled ourselves out at about 3:30.  Peter said that wasn't bad for a first try.  We took a nice stroll to Jackson Square to let things settle, then went back to the Absinthe House to meet our new Galatoire's friends for a round of Pimm's Cups.  It was a good Friday.

On top of that, the rest of the weekend saw a trip to the Audubon Insectarium, drinking on the patio at Dos Jefes, and the best weather of the year.  I like this time of year.