N.O. Trip: The ride in (I)

The ride in to New Orleans from Texas was rainy and we stopped in Houston at a very good place called Denis' Seafood on I-10. It was picked by a friend we were meeting there, and turned out the be a very New Orleans place. I thought I'd get an early start on raising my cholesterol and had the oyster po-boy. I highly recommend Denis' if you are in the Houston area.

The waiter was very professional and seemed like a New Orleanian, but many people from Houston strike me that way, probably due to some co-mingled accents. But when I heard him say 'wahdta' for 'water', it was a dead giveaway. So we ended up talking to Charles (our waiter) for quite a while. He worked at the Monteleone in the French Quarter for almost 20 years and had been in Houston since Da Stahm. He seemed very stoic about it all and didn't appear to have any near term plans for going back.

It was pouring down rain when we got back to the car and I put on Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris' "Beachcoming" from "All the Roadrunning" and wondered if things in New Orleans were going to be even worse than I expected.