Text 34579, 90 rader
Skriven 2015-12-27 07:21:12 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Last tango in NOLA 1 716
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We decided to save a few bucks and took public trans to the
airport. Turned out to be easy, pretty painless, and almost
on time. (On weekends, life is tougher, as the airport is in
Jefferson Parish, and the city is in Orleans Parish, and the
transportation authorities aren't in total sync, and the JeT
bus stops at the county line, after which you have to take
an RTA bus downtown.) Anyhow, one spends one's 1.25 on the
RTA to Tulane (many buses and streetcars), then hops on the
JeT E2 for a $2 almost-an-hour trip out of the city. We had
allowed mishap time, and there were none, so had a good 2 hr
to wander around the less than interesting airport and have
lunch. Which was at Dooky Chase's, an offshoot of the famed
place down north of the Quarter. Airport restaurants are
often pale imitations of the real thing (q.v. the Grand
Central Oyster Bar at EWR, now closed, and the Acme Oyster
Bar at MSY, also now closed, and the Legal Seafoods chain
in various places, going strong but not good), but sometimes 
there's a hit - Sam and Harry's at DCA, which outlived its 
parent; Gallagher's at EWR (now closed); and this one, which
seems to have taken the spot formerly occupied by Acme.

The place gets raked over the coals by the Internet reviewers
because of the shall we say leisurely service, which is not
the best thing for someone trying to catch a flight; but
then the chicken is cooked to order.

For some reason Lilli had not gone down to breakfast at
the hotel, and for some reason she wanted to remedy that by
ordering chicken and waffles, and for some reason they had
quit making breakfast for the day, and for some reason she
got bent out of shape by not getting her waffles, which she
admits normally don't appeal that much to her. After some
more cajoling she agreed to get a three-piece lunch, which
comes with fries - a big old plate of food for a big old
price, 50% more than in town. Anticipating some snackage
off her plate, I just got red beans and rice with a hot
sausage link, competitively priced but as it turned out a 
somewhat meager portion. 

The food was good.

The beans were at least as good as Popeye's, though they had 
not been cooked to a mush the way the fast-food ones are 
(where's the sense in that). The meat that flavored them was a 
generous proportion of link sausage disks; on top of this was 
blopped a very small spoonful of the usual converted rice 
(less soupy and disgusting than usual) and a half a link, split 
again lengthwise, of very salty and not very hot hot sausage.

Lilli's chicken was good bordering on excellent - a large 
breast somewhat overbrined but tender and juicy as a result,
coated with the kind of crisp coating that you most of the
time just dream of - not floppy, not hard, adhering nicely to 
the skin. Alongside a tiny drummer and a medium-size wing, both
excellently done. The fries, thicker than we'd become used to
during the week, were tender-crisp on the outside with a lacy
delicate coating and tender and powerfully potatoey inside. We 
surprised ourselves by between us eating most of the huge mound.

Nothing is perfect.

The alcohol list doesn't have prices.

Lilli asked about the wines, and the waiter said that all the
prices were the same, I think $6 for a small and $9 for a tall.
I was a little surprised, because there were bottles that 
retailed for $5 (Yellow Tail and the like) and bottles that
retailed for three times that (Estancia Cabernet, which she
got) all the way to the Acacia Pinot Noir. Welll ... come bill
paying time, she had been charged $10 for each small glass (she
had two - but at least she hadn't sprung for the Acacia). I was
sort of tired of Abita amber by this time, so I had a large Dos
Equis to vary my routine. It came to $10 for 20 oz and was the
light lager rather than the amber that I'd hoped for.

Thanks to the alcohol, we spent almost twice our budget -
nearly $70 for lunch, which took us just under 2 hours.

Lilli's plane was out of C, mine out of D yet 2 more hours 
later, so I sent her on her way and camped out using the
barely adequate wi-fi for a while, after which I wandered
around looking at other parts of the airport, which proved not
awfully interesting after a while, listened to a jazzish combo 
that had been hired to provide holiday cheer, and considered 
getting some holiday cheer of the liquid variety, but $10 a 
throw was just too much. I almost got another red beans and 
rice, and if any cayenne pepper could have been located, I 
might have, my depleted wallet notwithstanding.
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