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.