Day 18 – “Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! Iko, Iko, un-day…”

…Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-n? - Jock-a-mo fee na-n?”

Jackson Square

We didn't go to Jazz Fest today and instead took a tour of New Orleans as we have never been here before.  Steve and Megan were our tour guides, which was great for us. We started the morning with beignets at Café Du Monde after a walk through Jackson Square (see photo). Beignets are fried dough with powdered sugar and they are commonly eaten for breakfast in New Orleans. After beignets we did some shopping in the French Market and then walked through the French Quarter. Steve and Megan picked up a muffaletta sandwich at Central Grocery and we ate it outside in the courtyard of our hotel. A muffuletta sandwich consisted of layers of cold cuts (ham, either salami or mortadella, provolone, mozzarella) and marinated olive salad on something like a focaccia roll sliced horizontally. The roll is unique and along with the olive salad is what really makes the sandwich. One sandwich fed five of us and I would rank that sandwich equal to any hoagie. 

Bourbon Street on Saturday Night

In the afternoon we took a streetcar ride uptown, just like in the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which is set in New Orleans. We did some more window shopping on Magazine Street, which is a trendy neighborhood with a lot of boutique stores and restaurants. We then had dinner at Jacques Imo's Café, which brings me back to the opening lyrics.  The restaurant name was likely inspired by a play on the lyrics to “Iko Iko”, a traditional New Orleans song. Jacques Imo’s is billed as Creole comfort food and it certainly didn't disappoint from our appetizers of Alligator Cheesecake and Gumbo right thought our main courses. That may have been the best meal we had on the entire trip!

To top the evening, we walked along Bourbon Street with Steve and Megan who were headed to hear Allan Toussaint (“Southern Nights” and many other songs) in concert. We got to see the quaint New Orleans of gas lamps and wrought iron railings and also the seedy New Orleans all in one walk.