DO'S AND DON'TS SO FAR

(For the next few days or so, I'll be driving from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Some highlights...)
1. Davenport's Pizza (Birmingham, AL)-I really never understood what it was that made Davenport's so good. The ingredients and methods of manufacture seem pretty standard, at first, and obvious when you watch the cooks. There are no sun dried tomatoes; no imported cheeses; no wood grilled chicken. And then recently I realized the secret: the tactic of lathering the pizza with sauce and ingredients before covering the top with deli size slices of mozzarella, creating, in effect, two separate and distinct layers of experience. The pies are cut into small rectangular pieces allowing you to eat some pieces in the whole, and others layer by layer.
2. Vicksburg Welcome Center-Sitting on the gateway to the West with a towering view of the Mississippi and an old bridge that looks like it could have taken cannon fire from Union ships.
3. Ft. Worth Weather-Driving into Ft. Worth around 7, with the city having just experienced a week straight of rain, we found a cloud that seemed 10 miles in length, stretching across the sky with a bottom layer defined by a gray-purple hue and a top layer that looked like snow spilling over a New England log house. Lightning flashed intermittently. I felt like something was lumbering above me about to engulf my car. Pretty soon it rained, a lot.
4. Route 66-I spent about 10 minutes on it. Satisfied. For now.
5. Rudy's BBQ (Denton, TX)-Dry rubbed, oak-fired, Texas barbecue. The spicy chopped sandwich, garnished with fresh onions and spicy, pickled peppers and carrots on the side, was a slightly charred, smoky, ode to everything you imagine good barbecue to be. The green beans salad was slightly frozen, and the corn cob perhaps a bit overcooked but, again, the sandwich is worth the trio alone.
6. Crow Collection of Asian Art-In downtown Dallas. Nice little museum with a great gift shop. The highlight was a temporary exhibit of female Buddhas via various media. The 1000 paper cranes that hung from the mezzanine were nice as well.
7. Dealey Plaza-Kind of eerie actually, even at 2 in the afternoon. The conspiracy guy that gave me a 10 minute, well-researched and evenly paced audio-visual sales pitch on the multiple killer theory only added to the mood. The major DON'T, though, arrived in the form of three, sun-dress attired sorority types who took turns preening and posing, smiles blaring, in a manner that might make even a Hilton sister frown, as their friend took photos of them standing on the X that marks the spot of the spot on the road where the first shot hit JFK. It was amazing.
8. Teppo-Yakitori/Sushi in a Dallas club/record store/restaurant neighborhood. Watch out for the spicy Japanese mustard that comes with the yakitori. Make sure you sit on the automated, Japanese style, toilets. And try the beef tongue.

WEEKLY NY TIMES UPDATE NO. 2

On one of our last nights in Tokyo our newfound friends led us up through the quiet hills and alleys of Ebisu, through the doors of an apartment building, up several flights of stairs, and into a living space that I would love to have called my apartment; only it wasn't an apartment, it was a bar. Apparently such places, found through word of mouth and in dark alleys rather through advertising and drink specials, have become evermore popular among Tokyoites tired of Rappongi techno-blaring bars like Gas Panic. At least The New York Times thinks so.

There's also a short article that I've yet to read on Bali, which is somewhere on the short end of my list for where to go next.

And if you're wondering what to do the next time you're in Atlanta, try this. They are right on with the Starlight Drive In recommendation, but I would recommend the Atlanta History Center over Cyclorama, and the downtown Hilton, owing to its proximity to Trader Vic's over any of the hotels they suggest.

PICTURES

Off the beaten path Shanghai, c/o The New York Times.
Where not to go to the beach, c/o Fodors.
What people are eating these days, all over the world, c/o Time.

CRESCENT CITY TEN

Have you ever walked through the French Quarter around 10 AM in the rain? If you haven't, maybe you should.

1. Faulkner House Books (Pirates Alley)-Pirates Alley has always been one of my favorite spots in New Orleans, situated right off Jackson Square with a view of the rear courtyard of the Cathedral, steeped in lore surrounding Pirate Jean Lafitte and former resident William Faulkner. Faulkner House Books is one of those tiny, dimly lit bookstores you always look for in historic districts but never really find, one of those places you feel like you should buy something in because...well...just because you should. When you're in the bookstore, looking at the copy of Coming Through Slaughter you know you should buy, you're actually standing in the what used to be be WF's bedroom, where he wrote his first novel, Soldiers' Pay. A middle aged woman directed me to the framed picture of Faulkner on the wall with a postcard he sent to a Greenville, MS friend: "Come on over. -Bill."
2. Cafe Du Monde-It's really kind of charming, in a weird way, to sit in Cafe Du Monde amidst the collection of trash and ephemera that saturates the floor during a 10:30 PM rush. Waiters move back and forth breathlessly, politely and diplomatically jostling drunk out of towners fulfilling their checklists. I'm sure that any longtime resident of the city will tell you that the beignets have suffered from the decades of attention, but in my relative ignorance I'll say that the combination of fried pastry, powdered sugar, and an iced Cafe Au Lait on a June night to follow an afternoon of drinking is as good as any trip to Krystal. I mean that as a compliment. Cafe Du Monde is a perfect example of a place that does one thing really well, and refuses to even try to do anything else.
3. New Orleans Pharmacy Museum-One of my new favorite mini-museums, alongside Ford's Theatre (and the Inn across the street) in DC. Five bucks gets you a tour through pharmaceutical history with counters and cabinets full of everything they used to think could cure you--cocaine, heroin, tonics, bleeding tools, stirrups, syringes that look like something out of Dead Ringers, and live leeches.
4. Hustler megastore-Obviously, this place can't really compete with that strip club on Bourbon with the mechanical legs that raise in and out with the obedience of a cuckoo clock. But the chocolate scent that greets you at the door and gives way to hardcore porn on flatscreens upstairs is a nice break from watching people throw up next to 14 year old Latino prostitutes.
6. The Mississippi-If you ever get a chance to just sit and watch the boats go by at dusk it's pretty awesome.
7. Carmelo's Italian Ristorante-I was kind of tired (after only two meals) of overpriced, semi-dimensional New Orleans Quarter cuisine when we wondered into this Decatur St. restaurant, recommended on Chowhound. The decor and staff commanded the respect of any semi-formal Midtown or Highlands restaurant but seemed perfectly content with the fact that 90% of the customers were wearing shorts. A display case in back of the restaurant held fresh vegetables, marinated olives, fruits, and various antipasti. When I asked the waiter if they had a fruit salad for dessert he offered to make me one from the fruit on display. I had the risotto, with porcini mushrooms and "hints of white truffle oil." I can be pretty bad about rushing through a meal I enjoy, a product of the conditioning I've received with short work lunch breaks and the fact that I just really love to eat, but the risotto forced me to slow down, alternating between my entree and pieces of perfectly toasted bread, enjoying the subtle rhythms, aromas and waves of the ingredients moving back and forth on my tongue. When I finished mine I sopped up my girlfriend's equally quality marinara sauce with the leftover bread.
8. The Quarter at night-One of those "duh" things. But you really can't overstate the ambiance of walking around one of the off-Bourbon streets (Burgundy, Royal, Chartres to name a few) after 10 o'clock, when the crowds are at Pat O'Brien's or Oz and the gas lamps are flickering. I know that sounds really lame and affected but it's true.
9. Central Grocery-Did I mention that I really admire it when restaurants do one thing really well? Central Grocery isn't really a restaurant, I guess. It's an Italian grocery that stocks imported pastas, antipasti, wines, tomato sauce, and lot's of other stuff I didn't have enough time to notice. In addition, they run a lunchtime assembly line that produces what everybody says is the best muffuletta in the city, and is undoubtedly the best I've ever had. Makes sense, as the sandwich was invented there by Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian, in the early 1900s. Walk up to the counter and hand them $11 and they'll immediately hand you a 12" record sized sandwich packed in white paper and wax paper. Cut into quarters, the sandwich is a ridiculously enticing blend of properly thick, but chewy, sesame seed topped bread, capicola and salami laid out as a base for provolone, and an olive and cauliflower salad, that might also be called a salt and oil salad, that unites the entire experience. We split it.

YOUTH IN ASIA

Tour diary, with lot's of photos, here.