<p>US6509 BOS DCA 2F - Lots of bustling businessfolk on this flight. I had one of the few empty seats next to me, which was kind of nice. The flight was uneventful; the crew was pleasant but stricter with safety things than I am accustomed to (one FA checked under my
jacket, which I'd draped over my legs and secured with the seat belt), to make sure I wasn't hiding a carryon! Breakfast was a bagel in a bag - I declined and asked for my usual, tap water no ice. No audio on this plane. Took the coastal route that I remember from the days
of my youth - down to Long Island, skirting the shore past NYC, then turning inland around Delaware someplace and across the Bay well south of the bridge (very different from the route I usually take on United, which is essentially straight west to Albany and then straight
south to Washington; the return flight on United more or less follows the shore, though); then we circled around approaching DCA from the west. A decent but noisy landing. I had to go from the Shuttle gates to the regular terminal, which involved wasting 15 minutes in the
line for security. Had just enough time to have a glass of OJ and a pastry at the very ritzy RCC before boarding </p><p> US981 DCA MSY 12F. This flight was way oversold, every seat taken; they were offering a fistful of dollars, accommodations, and first class passage next
day. Not for me, I had a dozen oysters at the Acme calling my name loudly. This flight on an MD-80 (I hadn't been on one of these since well before the troubles) was also uneventful, but we suffered a bunch of turbulence near the end of the flight. They offered a small but
tasty and 100% nondairy snack: an ounce of zucchini bread, the tiniest little Delicious apple, and 90 cal worth of Sun-Maid raisins - my seatmate was also lactose intolerant, so that was an hour's conversation right there. No audio on this plane either. </p><p>
Had the first of many beers at the Mardi Gras Lounge - $4 a pint is highway robbery, but it's Abita, and it's good. The food looked and smelled good as well - I've never eaten the stuff, as there is always someplace good to go. </p><p> My buddies picked me up and we
wandered around the Quarter for a while before we were hungry enough for the Acme, where we split a dozen silky grays on the half shell along with jambalaya, red beans and rice, and gumbo. As this day was shot anyhow, we spent the rest of the day picking up silly gifts,
drinking from random bars (some of those drinks, I recall a Long Beach, I think it was, not Long Island Iced Tea in particular, are both nasty-tasting and lethal), and spending our spare change on beignets at Cafe du Monde (better even than Krispys, I say).</p>

Okay, someone clue me in on how to make a line feed. I'm making a feeble attempt to post using Lynx.

Just hit enter a couple times.

If you like Acme, you should check out the location on the lakefront in MSY - it's much less crowded and has excellent views of the lake!

[This message has been edited by IAH_FLYER (edited 04-29-2000).]

Ah, you have me pegged as the original luddite liberal arts major (somewhat true). Unfortunately, the software running this board and Lynx have conspired to eat multiple spaces and carriage returns, and so I have the choice of looking funny when I write or not communicating at all (file uploads don't seem to work well either). Someday I'll find it within myself to get a real computer with a real web browser, but as I spent something like 120% of my earnings on travel last year, that won't be for a while.
[p]So should I continue to send ugly-looking reports, or should I spend zillions of precious hours retyping drafts, or should I shut up until technology and I are on a more even footing?

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Cheers
Michael *G

Do they have a 15-dozen club (something else to aspire to in life)? On the lake, I kind of like Middendorf's on the W side, on rte 55. Will post some more food-heavy stuff when I have time to type 'em all in on line, or when I figure out my technical difficulties, whichever comes first.

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Cheers
Michael *G

violist

just keep posting - the fancy stuff can wait !!!

I had a bunch of things to do on my week away but managed to hit a bunch of hot spots during my spare time. After all, isn't the pace of life down there supposed to be more civilized? Highlights.
There's a Stop & Go convenience store at the S end of Sunshine Bridge (rte 70), where I had some good boudin, a tasty meat pie (just like a Cornish Pasty), and crawfish pie which was crawfish and cheese sauce packed into a roll. A definite keeper, this place.
Oak Alley Plantation, near Vacherie on the south side of the river, is one of the most majestic antebellum homes - certainly more tasteful than Nottaway upriver in White Castle, which is the biggest, and better built, situated, and preserved than most of the others.
Took a good long time to go through the place and tour the grounds. We walked around a good bit and were ready to head into town for lunch: unfortunately on I-10 there was major congestion, so we backtracked to Airline and wended our way to the garden district and
Pascale Manale's. More oysters, of course, and as one of us had never had squid, we ordered fried calamari, which were disappointing - clearly from a bag bought frozen from a food service outfit; I've tasted that kind of breading far too many times at mediocre bars.
Turtle soup was okay, but the roux was too light, they used orange peel in the seasoning, and there was too much sieved egg on top: the saving grace was the little jug of sherry (about a glassful) that they offered to adjust the flavor - I used about a teaspoon of
sherry and a teaspoon of, you guessed it, Tabasco, which gave the proper heat but made the soup a bit vinegary; oh, well. The shrimp creole had no complexity of flavor - too much celery and raw tomato flavor, a major disappointment. The restaurant is famous for its
BBQ shrimp, which is really shrimp broiled in garlic butter with Tabasco and Worcestershire (plus an insignificant amount of secret ingredients). It comes either as a plate (complete with shells, heads, and a bib so you don't mess yourself too badly) or as a sandwich,
which is about 8" length of bread hollowed out and filled with shelled shrimp and a copious amount of sauce; these were good, but I could do as well. I ordered oysters Dante, which is essentially ziti in garlic butter with a few seasonings, a bunch of Parmesan, and a
half dozen nicely fried oysters on top: a good dish. Then it was back to the Quarter and Cafe du Monde for more beignets for dessert.

A slight contretemps at Galatoire's, where I was hoping to get seated at my favorite table upstairs, but it turned out they had closed it, or so the maitre d' said, for a private party. We sat in the hideous downstairs (supposedly preferable, but I hate it) and
were waited on by a newbie who was very pretty (a woman waiting tables at Galatoire's???) and actually quite efficient. She got a good tip. We had, let's see, crabmeat Sardou - a bed of spinach topped with artichoke hearts topped with good white crabmeat topped
with hollandaise; oysters Rockefeller, the usual thing but light on the herbsaint flavor, so I had a glass of Pernod with; shrimp remoulade, the usual; crabmeat ravigote, the usual. We had a bottle of Simi Chard 97, nice with the crabmeat dishes. Any wine, I
think, would be killed by remoulade sauce, and if I were to match a wine with the oysters Rockefeller, I'd have matched it with the Matanzas Creek Sauvignon Blanc; the Pernod did its job, though. We just needed more people at table! For dessert, the others had
coffee and Bourbon bread pudding, a classic. As I'd eaten the bulk of the food, I passed. And then it was out into the ... rain ?! so we skeedaddled back in. Ordered drinks and toyed with them for a half hour; I'd ordered Remy VSOP and what I got was something
weird, but we weren't charged too much, and we needed a dry place to sit for a while. Eventually went upstairs to show the others, who'd never been. My waiter was there, and he expounded on how if he'd known it was we who had wanted to sit upstairs, he would have
made room for us. An embarrassment of hand-kissing, and we bade him a fond adieu. In the evening we went to see a gut-wrenching but funny play called How I Learned to Drive, put on by students at LSU.
In Baton Rouge: We visited the State House, which I'd promised to do because my committee chairman is the grandson of the architect of the thing. Art deco silliness 20 stories high, dominating the Baton Rouge riverbank. Impressive in its way, I guess, with high,
exceedingly ornately decorated ceilings (I was told made out of sugar cane tailings) in the entrance hall and the senate chamber. Didn't see the other chamber, as the house was in session that day. Ran my fingers along the bullet scars in the marble at the
elevator where Huey Long was killed. Took another elevator to the 16th floor observation deck and its panoramic view; unfortunately, there isn't much to see in central Louisiana.

Lafite's Landing in Donaldsonville. The home of well-regarded chef John Folse, who I understand has a TV show. A pleasant converted home (apparently Folse's living quarters until his restaurant burned down a couple years ago, so he moved his operation here). Attentive
but slightly self-conscious service. Interesting food, some audacious, some hopelessly retro. For example, the only salad is an iceberg wedge with blue cheese dressing (other dressing available on request) - ecch. Servers come by with breads (all good, some very good)
and spreads (all odd, some, such as lemong ginger butter, very odd). Let's see what we had, in no particular order. Crab cakes with hollandaise and blueberry reduction were pretty good - better than United Airlines crabcakes which are okay, less good than a perfect
Maryland crab cake (such as that sold at the Crab Cake Factory at the western end of Annapolis, Maryland, on I think West Street: I have no connection with the place but have had several fine crab cakes there) - a chive oil and beet garnish, however, was a bit
excessive. There is a signature dish of the place, oysters 4 ways, which are (the menu claims them as "the four classic ways") Rockefeller, au gratin, with crawfish & tasso, and teriyaki! in order of heaviness and also of goodness - the teriyaki is one of the most
horrible things ever eaten by man or beast. Shrimp in potato crust were as advertised, big shrimp, complete with head and tail, but otherwise shelled, wrapped in shredded potatoes: heavy stuff, and the potato crust cried out for sour cream, as it tasted like latkes,
but the shrimp, protected by the crust, were delicious and moist. Death by gumbo is a strange name for a quail stuffed with rice and andouille, served in the middle of a bowl into which a brown sauce-like gumbo with oysters is poured: an intriguing dish. Roast chicken,
andouille, and red bean soup is another variation on the gumbo theme: less fancy and less special, but I thought slightly nicer tasting. Rack of lamb stuffed with goat cheese was excellent; soft-shelled crabs, a pair of giants, stuffed with rice, were nice but not as
nice: a weird tapioca and sesame cracker accompanied. Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake, served with French vanilla ice cream, vanilla whipped cream, a chocolate truffle, and mint-lavender drizzle was tasty but a bit busy, the whole a bit less than the sum of the
parts. With this meal we drank the St. Francis Sonoma County Chard 98, a well-balanced lightish wine with no surprises, and Penfold's Kalimna Bin 28 Shiraz 95 I think, which was a bit sweet but otherwise the equal of any Rhone wine in the moderate price range, very ripe and fruity, a bit prunish and a little low in acid to my taste.

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Cheers
Michael *G

Longfellow-Evangeline state park and Olivier plantation: rather unprepossessing entrance on the road from Lafayette to Avery Island; and the impression isn't enhanced by tacky little signs saying things like "WARNING - stop and pay fee!" every hundred yards or so. You
go into the interpretive center, which is just like a thousand interpretive centers in parks all around. Cash register unmanned. Or unpersoned: after you wander through displays of Acadian furnishings and personal effects, Atchafalaya wildlife, and whatnot, you're
about to leave, and the ranger - a pleasant youngish woman - says, "can I help you," and you are forced to pay the fee, which is either $2 or 3 per adult, I forget, free for children and senior citizens. "Remember to take your ticket," she says, because you need proof
of admission to see the Olivier house! This is a much smaller plantation house, a couple thousand square feet, with the usual outbuildings and slave quarters (these last now gone), a nice little garden, and some of the biggest oldest live oaks around. And a nice old
lady as tour guide - she's the great-granddaughter of the man who settled the plantation in the mid-19th century. A lot of stories to tell, some of them a bit smudged together (she's quite old), which annoyed my professor-host a bit. And guess what, she didn't ask for
the tickets. Met an amusing and pleasant couple from Vancouver on this trip; gave them a map of St. Francisville, encouraging them to see the Myrtles. The guide steered us to a place called Possum's for lunch. So we went there and found it to be a quintessential
tourist trap, with buses clogging the parking lot and all. So we forgot that and went to Foti's Oyster Bar, St. Martinville.

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Cheers
Michael *G

Foti's is a plain restaurant, recently a general store and still with merchandise on the walls. The owner proudly told us about her plans to open up the back garden for outdoor dining (don't count on making it work, babes) and to begin serving steaks (?!?!) on
weekends. It's really not exactly a steakhouse setting! Started off as usual with oysters ($4.95 a dozen), which were I think from the bayous, and were good but not so briny and bracing as New Orleans ones. There's an assortment of sandwiches and things on the menu,
but really, crawfish are the thing to get. The boiled mudbugs were underseasoned but fresh and sweet; boiled shrimp spiced with hot sauce, good. The "Doug's special" of 2.5 lb crawfish and 15 shrimp: $12.95. They also have 3.5 lb of crawfish with a potato for $11.95
and 5 lb of crawfish, the family special, for I think $16.95. An order of boudin is about 6 oz each of two kinds - regular and vinegared; both excellent. Comes with bread, which strikes me as redundant, because there's enough starch in the sausage already. We asked the
owner whether the boudin was made there, she said no. Was vague about identity of maker, said to be in Breaux Bridge. Went there, asked at the local drugstore, where an old guy said, "oh, yeah, I go there every morning and have boudin for breakfast." The place is
called Bayou Boudin, and it's on La. 94 at the north end of town, right by the Bayou Teche. It was closed when we got there.

The Myrtles in St. Francisville isn't so spectacular as some of the surrounding mansions - it's low and darkish, attractive in its way, but it was my favorite of all the antebellum houses: perhaps it was the history of murder and intrigue that made it seem more
interesting to me than all the others. The most famous of several murders: Seems that at one time the owner of the place had an affair with a beautiful slave girl, who of course got uppity ... she was caught eavesdropping on family business, of course, and the owner,
of course, had her ear cut off and banished her to the kitchens, where of course she nursed her grievance until one day, of course, she baked the family a cake laced with oleander juice. Heh heh heh. I couldn't play hooky forever, so we went back to Baton Rouge to
hear a concert of new music by the Louisiana Sinfonietta. Didn't like any of the stuff - certainly not anything by anyone I'd like to commission a work from - and we left at intermission, as it was a very long concert, and things seemed only to be getting worse as it
went on. Some good performers, though: an excellent pianist, a fine saxophone player, and a good cellist. HAD to get something to eat, so we stopped by Mr Gatti's, one of the places open late. They serve a $6 pizza buffet (a buck off for students with ID); we just
split a pie 3 ways; and a few beers at a buck a pop made me forget the music in short order.

US1066 MSY CLT 12F I chatted with a colleague the whole time on this leg, so I didn't notice too much about the flight. Takeoff was about 30 min late, and landing ditto. En route we were served a sort of snack - a turkey-cheese croissant sandwich, the bread soggy,
the turkey slightly odd-tasting, the cheese elderly and mottled. There was some kind of BBQ-flavored snack mix as well, fairly palatable but with no redeeming nutritional value. Also a fun size packet of M&Ms - I neurotically counted 23. There was some turbulence
on descent. In-seat audio on both this plane and the next, but I didn't use it.
--
US 339 CLT DCA 12F. Thought about taking the previous flight, which was 1 1/4 hr late and thus about 20 min ahead of the one I was scheduled on, but reasoned that people on our (sold out) flight probably tried that game and so urs might not be quite so crowded. No
such luck, ours was packed to the gills. Slept through most of the 45 min flight, which came in right on time. When I fell asleep, there was a baby squalling in back; the baby was more or less quiet when I woke - must have been a good flight. Seats on this Airbus were
the most comfortable coach seats I recall on any airline, although the armrests go only about halfway up, as the seats are too padded. Empower ports = yes. Got in around midnight, had plenty of calls to make. Mighty tired.

Michel Richard is one of the most honored chefs around (a couple James Beard awards, plus nominations), and his restaurant Michel Richard's Citronelle at the Latham Hotel is said to be the best restaurant in Washington. I am not too thrilled by places where the chef
plasters his name all over the place (and there is a framed cute picture of him at the center of each table: we moved it off to one side so we didn't have to look at him), but it is said that this is a don't miss, so we didn't miss it. You go through this narrow
double door arrangement (fat people cannot get in) and down into what I can describe only as a Danish modern pit. I don't see why the media rave about the furnishings: they look rather like someone's playroom, only bigger and with no dog hair. The tables are okay,
but the chairs are big and low: you sit there and feel like a kid; some may like this, but I think it's just a bit silly.
-
Speaking of silly, there is a tasting menu at $85 and a tasting menu at $100. As it was splurge night, my friend B and I wanted to do one of each (at comparable places, such as Rover's in Seattle, if you do this, you end up with something like 20 little tiny jewel-like
courses); the waiter informed us that not only do they not do this, but everyone at the table has to get the same menu, so it was either two $85s or two $100s. We had to think about that, and they obviously thought we'd get scared away and end up ordering the cheapest
things on the menu ... It was a bit irritating, but we came up with a solution that satisfied our tummies and taste buds and also their greed for our money: we split 4 main courses.