The Dang's: New Orleans Day 4: Enjoying the French Quarter

Once our fascinating walking tour concluded, we headed back to the French Quarter on the St Charles Streetcar. Luckily we didn't have to wait long for it going back.

After dropping off some stuff at the hotel, we walked towards Jackson Square to grab lunch at the nearby Central Grocery. It was nearly 2 pm, and the line was out the door! Central Grocery is world famous for their muffuletta.

Muffuletta is a submarine-style sandwich on circular flat bread. It has layers of olive salad, mortadella, salami, ham, provelone and mozzarella. It originated in New Orleans at Central Grocery. We also grabbed crawfish flavored chips and a beer for Adam, and took them to Jackson Square to eat while enjoying the view. It was yummy!

This was the view from our park bench. Lovely.

After lunch, we took in a few museums in the square including the 1880 house,

and the Presbytere. The Presbytere had a wonderful exhibit on Living with Hurricanes, as well as an interesting exhibit on Mardi Gras.

We had planned on visiting St. Louis Cathedral, but it was closed for a wedding.

We ended up just heading back to the room to relax and write postcards before dinner. On our way to the room, we stopped at a bar on Bourbon for me to get a frozen mango daiquiri.

We had a 7 pm dinner reservation at NOLA by Emeril. It was amazing and the perfect way to end a great day. I'm glad I had made a reservation as the wait was an hour and a half. We were seated quickly on the main floor, but were surprised to learn there were two additional floors for dining. Wow.

We started off by sharing an order of Emeril's Barbecued Gulf Shrimp served with a rosemary biscuit. The sauce was out of this world.

For dinner, Adam ordered the hickory-roasted duck with a whiskey-caramel glaze and candied pecans, cornbread pudding and haricot verts. It looked really good and was one of the dishes I almost ordered.

But I was very happy with my choice. It's one of the best meals I've ever had!
It was "Shrimp & Grits" featuring sauteed gulf shrimp and grilled onions on smoked cheddar grits with smoke bacon, crimini mushrooms, and a red chili-abita butter sauce. It was insanely good. Seriously.

After dinner, we walked through a packed Bourbon Street because of the Bayou Classic, and decided to spend the rest of the night in our room unwinding and packing. The next day we would be renting a car and getting out of the city.