Mardi Gras 2015 Part 1: The No Beer and No Boobs Edition

New Orleans will always be a special city for me.  The city has no shortage of incredible restaurants serving diverse cuisines.  The local blend of Cajun and Creole culture is unique from anything else in the country.  The metro area is always hosting some special event or festival.  But most importantly, New Orleans is the place where The Wife and I met 17 years ago. 

As great as the city is to visit, it is as equally difficult to live and raise a family.  The crime and poverty rates are high.  A great proportion of the population is obese and unhealthy (the delicious food doesn't help).  There are too many drunk tourists who think every weekend is Mardi Gras.  And there are way too many LSU fans.

Maybe because of these reasons, The Wife and I haven't returned to New Orleans after graduating from medical school there 13 years ago.  Now that The Kids were getting older, we figured that they were ready to experience the fun of Mardi Gras.  Not the drunken debauchery and titty-flashing, but the family-friendly parades.  We were also curious to see how New Orleans has recovered a decade after Hurricane Katrina. 

We were planning to stay with one of our friends who lives Uptown.  However, when those plans fell through, we decided on the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street.  By using our Starwood points, we avoided the outrageous Mardi Gras price markup, and we got a 5th night for free.  At the last minute The Big Brother and his family also decided to fly in for a couple of days.

After work, we made the five hour drive down to New Orleans.  The Wife and I drove The Kids nuts by blasting and singing along to some 1980's hair bands.  We arrived late at night while the Krewe of Muses parade was rolling along Canal Street.  Traffic was a mess as barricades blocked off important intersections along the parade route.  Luckily, someone let us through one of the blocked off streets so that we could get to our hotel.  Parking for our SUV was a whopping $45 per night.  After dumping our luggage off in the room, The Kids and I headed down to the hotel lobby to watch the last third of the Muses parade.

The crowds were thin probably because it was late on a very cold Thursday night.  As the only children around, The Kids were pelted with all sorts of beads and plush toys.  I was just standing around, shivering and minding my own business when a lady on the upper deck of a float tossed me a large object wrapped in plastic.  It took me by surprise, and I tried to one-hand catch it.  *Clunk*  It hit the ground.  My clumsy attempt was unsuccessful.  Inside the package was a decorated Muses shoe, one of the more coveted items from the Mardi Gras parades.  The krewe members take ordinary shoes and decorate them with tons of glitter and flair.  To my dismay, the fall had caused some damage to the "trophy."  However, it was nothing a little superglue couldn't fix.

This Muses shoe can also double as a disco ball.

After spending half an hour watching only a small portion of the Muses parade, The Kids came back with enough throws to fill up a plastic grocery bag.  This whetted their appetites for more parades in the upcoming days.

*****

Friday, February 13, 2015

The next morning, we walked a block over to The Ruby Slipper Cafe, a chain of local restaurants serving high-end breakfast and brunch fare.  At 9 AM, the place was packed so we had to wait outside for a few minutes in the cold.  It was worth it as the food was very good and very filling.

  

Double chocolate pancake with bacon

Bacon, lettuce and fried green tomato sandwich

Baguette French toast with rum-flambeed bananas and bacon

Braised pork on a biscuit with poached eggs and hollandaise

We then headed over to the Riverwalk to visit one of our past favorite spots in the city--The Aquarium of the Americas.   

We had visited the aquarium several times when we had lived in New Orleans, even having one of our formal events there during medical school.  While the building had remained undamaged during Hurricane Katrina most of the wildlife had perished when the electricity was lost for days.  Fortunately, the aquarium found more marine animals to incarcerate in their tanks.  

Unlike many children, fish seem to enjoy eating broccoli.

This eel seemed really bored...or dead.

These seahorses aren't really pregnant
or fat.  Their bellies are normally large.

Their lobsters are fed blue crabs.  This must make them taste extra good. 

There are penguin feeding demonstrations twice a day.

The Kids enjoyed all of the interactive displays.  The Wife was mesmerized by the jellyfish, her all-time favorite exhibit.  And I could sit and watch the large tank full of sharks, pelagic fish, and a lonely sea turtle for hours.

Every aquarium in the country seems to have a pool where visitors can "pet" stingrays.

This is as close as The Girl will
get to touching a real frog.

The Wife proves that it's completely possible
to be swallowed whole by a Sharknado.

It's hard to hear The Boy's screams while underwater.

The Girl does her best Botticelli impression.

This is the fish that we should
have caught in Costa Rica

We also caught an IMAX movie at the theater next door.  The film was about lemurs in Madagascar.  The theater was too warm, I hadn't slept much in the past few days, and the film was kind of slow so I dozed off a few times.  

Afterwards, we walked a few blocks over to the The Outlet Collection At Riverwalk, a mini outlet mall.  There were a couple of stores like Coach and Neiman Marcus Last Call where The Wife scored some good deals.  But it was the smell of Cafe du Monde inside that we were really looking forward to.  It had been a decade since we had last eaten a beignet.  Those hot-out-of-the-fryer squares of puffed dough covered with heaping mounds of confectioner's sugar are a must-have treat when visiting New Orleans.

Beignets must also be accompanied by a chicory-flavored cafe au lait.

After a nap back at the hotel, we headed out for an early dinner to the French Quarter.  We decided that an early dinner at 4:45 PM would help us beat the Mardi Gras crowds.  That wasn't the case at Acme Oyster House.  There was a line of at least 30 people long snaking outside of the entrance.  We decided to walk two more blocks over to Deanie's Seafood.  The original restaurant near the lake area in Metairie has been around since the 1960's and is a favorite among locals.  Although I had been there a few times, I haven't been to this location yet as their second restaurant had only opened in the French Quarter about four years ago.

Although the place was busy, there was no wait time because they had a large dining area.  Unlike many of the famous and fancy restaurants in the French Quarter, Deanie's is casual with no-frills.  We started with a dozen oysters, half raw and half charbroiled.  The latter were really good.  We also tried one of their specials, crab Nachos.  It was comprised of hand-made potato chips smothered with cheese and lumps of crabmeat.  The melding of seafood and cheese was an Italian's worst nightmare.  It wasn't too bad, but the delicate taste of the crabmeat is drowned out by the other strong flavors.  We ended up ordering way too much food and had to get some to-go boxes.

Instead of bread, crawfish-boil potatoes are served.

Crab "nachos"

Oysters on the half shell.

Charbroiled oysters.

Fried oysters kids meal.

Fried shrimp kids meal.

Crawfish quartet--fried, etoufee, au gratin, and croquettes. 

Fried crawfish po-boy.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to wait for the three upcoming parades--Hermes, d'Etat, and Morpheus.

From our hotel room, we could see
the parades coming up Canal Street.

Therefore, we could just wait in the room and go down once the floats were about to arrive.

Another way of checking a parade's progress is by using the Mardi Gras apps from the local
news stations.  Their cars rode at the front of the parades and constantly updated their location.

The only downside of not staking out a spot way in advance is that sometimes there isn't any space in front for the kids to see.  With the smaller parades it wasn't that much of a big deal.  The Kids were easily able to squeeze into any small openings between parade-watchers.  The Krewe of Hermes were very generous with their beads.  The Kids ended up with a lot of knick-knacks that were thrown their way.  The best performers during the parade were the "610 Stompers."  This all-male dance troupe bills themselves as "ordinary men with extraordinary moves."

"We all agreed that their dancing was great...the presentations was very sexy...but dancers have traditionally had that lean, muscular, healthy physique...whereas theirs was...well fat and flabby."

The next parade from the Krewe of d'Etat had some interesting floats that poked fun at some of the recent subjects in the news.  However, The Kids ended up mostly emptying-handed by the end of that parade.  It seemed that the all-male riders preferred to lavish their attentions at young adult females. 

This float poked fun at the North Korea and Sony hacking controversy..

The recent measles epidemic on the west coast was also lampooned.

The parade also ripped Bill Cosby because of the rape allegations.

By that time, The Kids were getting tired because it was after 10 PM.  They were also disappointed because they didn't have much fun during that last parade.  

The Kids try to gather enough strength to see one more parade.

We were just about to call it a night when the parade from the Krewe of Morpheus started coming down Canal Street.  As the parade was passing by, a van from the Shriner's Childrens Hospital pulled up in front of us, and a very nice lady in the passenger seat handed The Girl a large teddy bear.  That gave The Girl the second wind that she needed to make it through this third parade.

If the streets weren't covered with enough trash already, this confetti ensure that it would be.

After the second day of Mardi Gras, we were already running out of space to put all of the beads.

*****

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Big Brother and his family had arrived the previous night.  We met up with them the next morning and headed towards Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

St. Louis Cathedral dominates the landscape in Jackson Square.

No trip to New Orleans would be complete without visiting the original Cafe Du Monde that was established in 1862.  The restaurant is owned by a Spanish-named family, manned by an army of Vietnamese workers, and serves up French style donuts and coffee.

When we arrived, the place was already packed with long lines both to sit down and to take out.

These four Vietnamese kids would blend in perfectly with Cafe du Monde's wait staff.

After getting our sugar fix (and a bunch of free Cafe du Monde hats), The Kids wanted to take a carriage tour through the French Quarter.  It's such a touristy thing to do.  But we weren't locals anymore.  The ride was relaxing and can be somewhat informative for first time visitors of the city.

The two girls were enamored with the horse that pulled our carriage.

After the 30 minute ride, we visited a couple of nearby shops.  We also grabbed some muffalettas from Central Grocery, the place where they were invented, for lunch.

Pralines, made with sugar syrup and pecans, are a popular souvenir 

We caught the two afternoon parades that day, Iris and Tucks.  The Kids found a spot for all of them to line up along the barricades.  It was a "Murderer's Row"--four adorable little kids back to back to back to back.  Only a heartless parade-goer would not throw something their way.  I was there to back them up and help them catch anything low.  The much taller The Big Brother was going to grab anything over our heads.  Unfortunately, our "Inescapable Net" was sabotaged by The Big Brother's complete lack of hand-eye coordination.  He couldn't catch any beads thrown around him.  The only trinkets he seemed to stop were the ones that hit him squarely in the face. 

The Kids and I patiently await the afternoon parades.

The Super Bowl party float followed the parade's theme of "Iris loves to party." 

Unlike Super Bowl Sunday, Left Shark had all the right moves during Mardi Gras.

Thankfully, The Wife didn't do anything to get any gigantic beads.

The Sister-In-Law also got into the carnival spirit.

Fresh from their victory on Kashyyyk, the 501st Legion marches in their Triumph.

I always expected that a Sith Lord would be much taller...

The Marine Corps' marching bands opened many a parade.

The Krewe of Tucks rely heavily on potty humor, literally.  The king's throne was unoccupied.

The "Laissez Boys" definitely knew how to ride in a parade with style.

As the Tucks Parade was winding down, we walked several blocks down to Mother's Restaurant on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Poydras Street.  It just happened to be located right where many of the parades ended.  While the adults waited in line, The Kids continued to grab more trinkets.  The float riders were very generous here as they tried to unload all their remaining beads.

The Wife and I had been to this restaurant years ago when we lived in New Orleans.  They are known for their black ham (a smoked ham with caramelized crust).  However, none of us were in the mood for that item.  We went with the traditional Cajun/Creole fare which was okay.

I thought that the turtle soup was one of the better items we tried at Mother's.

The kids menu "debris" (roast beef cooked in aus jus) biscuit.

Grilled shrimp po-boy.

One of the most annoying things about staying downtown during Mardi Gras is that the hotels refuse to let anybody inside unless they have a wristband proving that they are paying guests.  That means we couldn't let any friends or family members up into our room unless they were also staying at that hotel.  This was annoying for us because The Kids had no place that they could just relax and hang out with their cousins.  Since we had no common gathering place and his kids were tired, Big Brother and his family decided to skip the Endymion parade and turn in for the night.

Endymion is one of the "super krewes" with more highly-decorated floats and celebrity guests.  It is such a popular parade that people line up early in the day to grab a spot to watch it.  I figured since it would be passing only a block by our hotel, that we should at least try and see it.  The Wife stayed behind at the hotel as she was never a big fan of the crowds that these larger parades draw.  The Kids and I walked around looking for a spot to see the Endymion floats.  However, the crowds were at least ten people deep.  The Kids couldn't see anything over all the adults, nevermind catch any beads.  Therefore, after twenty minutes of futility, we ended up just heading back up to the hotel.  We had already had our fair share of parades in these past three days.