From Disney we grabbed an Uber to the airport for our last (internal) flight to New Orleans. Through Atlanta. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are going on the Eastern seaboard, especially on Delta, you fly though Atlanta. After a short delay between flights, we finally landed in New Orleans and grabbed a cab from the airport. The driver was an older African American gentleman who had all the swagger of a jazz muso. He chatted to us as we drove and pointed out good places to eat and discussed the lunacy of Black Friday sales turning into brawls at Walmart.

Eventually we arrived at our home for the next few days – a quaint old hotel, Bienville House. We dropped our bags and went exploring through the French Quarter, striking a bunch of panhandlers with cheap Mardi Gras beads peddling the “I bet I can tell you where you got those shoes scam”. Foreigners fall for it almost every time. The answer is “on your feet”. Panhandlers then shine your shoes (even if they are sneakers) and charge you $5 for the bet and $5 for the shine. Watch them disappear real quick with a whiff of police even approaching their direction. And there were plenty of targets as we had arrived the day before Thanksgiving, along with a slew of domestic tourists – there was a big NFL game that night and then a college game and battle of the bands across the weekend. The French Quarter smacks of a tourist trap crossed with a booze hound destination. While for me the drawcard was the architecture (and hopefully) the music, for some it was obviously the cheap (although watered down) booze, that you can walk around with as long as it isn’t in a glass container.  You can even buy it from some guy with an esky in a cart on the street. The South certainly is a place of few rules, and Bourbon Street in particular, the scene of much debauchery. That must be why the area is also peppered with people trying to save the souls of the depraved. We saw this a little bit in Miami but here the preaching on street corners is on steroids – more souls to save I guess.

From here we headed to find the restaurant where we were intending to have Thanksgiving dinner to confirm their advertised promise that they would take walk-ins (despite my numerous attempts to email them, I was yet to secure a reservation). When we arrived, they advised they were sold out with over 100 people on their wait list. We went back to the hotel to ask the concierge for alternate suggestions and set about calling until we found somewhere that could take us. A number of the booked out places were helpful – suggesting alternatives who were no doubt competitors any other day of the week. Eventually we found somewhere and booked a late Thanksgiving lunch. [Bridal Train – The Waifs – more than just ‘London Still’, the Waifs are one of my lazy morning easy listening favourites. This little ditty about the bridal trains taking Australian women who married US sailors during the second world war on a one way ticket to the US is a fave of mine.]

Sorting our Thanksgiving dining had left us hungry, so we headed back out to look around the French Quarter and find something to eat. Dan saw a place that looked OK and we both decided there was something on the menu we could eat. It turns out that Tableau is one on New Orleans’ best creole restaurants. Dan chose the brown butter gnocchi for appetizer and I had a bowl of seafood gumbo (when in Rome…). One of the things you get almost as a matter of course in American restaurants (other than fast food places), is bread or some form of dinner roll and butter. And here the bread was really good. Dan was mightily impressed with the gnocchi. I could tell the gumbo was really good too but despite those who crow about it – the seafood stew is not the best thing I have ever eaten. We also split a wedge salad after having enjoyed the crisp freshness of it so much on our previous experience. We weren’t disappointed. For mains, Dan chose a pork schnitzel, which when it arrived was almost as big as your head. It came with spaetzle, cucumber salad, shaved cabbage and gingersnap jus. Dan was even more impressed with this (but there was no way even he could finish it). I chose BBQ shrimp and grits. Yes – Shrimps are prawns and these ones were from the gulf and about the size of king prawns. They came with a BBQ sauce and grits – grits are like a savoury porridge made out of corn with butter. These were also made with beer (which was unusual). They were definitely high quality and I am sure something you could get used to but again not as great as many Americans seem to think they are. The shrimp was excellent though. And if you are going to try Shrimp and grits, I recommend Tableau as the best place to do that. With heaps of food leftover, we were asked if we wanted a box. It is common practice in America, regardless of whether you are at the Cheesecake Factory or a high-end restaurant like Tableau to have your leftovers boxed up to take home. Obviously, that isn’t really very practical when you are travelling but I also ask the question whether a reheated breaded pork chop or shrimp and grits prepared by a top chef would lose something in its enjoyment. We didn’t need dessert but couldn’t resist it, as the rest of the food was so good.  I chose the sweet potato bread pudding which came with pecans, chai crème anglaise, cinnamon sugar and sweet potato chips – it was delicious but again not finished. Dan did finish his vanilla bean crème Brule. He said it was just too good not to. I fear some serious dieting and exercise will be needed when we get home or we won’t fit into our wedding clothes.

After dinner we thought it best to take a bit of a walk to lessen the impact of all those calories. We didn’t have the energy for a four day hike so we walked up to Frenchman St. This used to be where the locals went for music but so many people know that now that it has really become the place tourists go. We didn’t see too much evidence of good music amongst the party hardened in Bourbon St but there was a smattering of bars in Frenchman St were pumping on Thanksgiving Eve. We didn’t have it in us to make a night of it though, so headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.

US states – 5, t-shirts – 7, fridge magnets – 6