Day 5 in NOLA

Day five started with a bike ride across town with a fellow traveller who has eliminated any reservations I had about folding bikes. I may have to get one, if only to be sure of having wheels on my travels.

We biked down through the CBD and the not so gentrified portion of the Warehouse District, winding up on Magazine (and luckily so, since his pedal somehow stripped the threads in his crank arm, but not so far away from Mike's Bikes (who are way nicer than the folk at Michael's on Frenchmen)).

Lunch was the seafood gumbo at the Boulangerie on Magazine. It, and the bread that came wiht it, was amazing. I've learned a thing or two about gumbo since being here, and that is that no two gumbos are the same. By and large, I prefer the thick, stewy version, which so far has tended to have a rich, brown hue, not unlike the chili on a Lafayette coney island. The gumbo at Boulangerie is of that ilk, though I couldn't say if they use a roux as a thickener or if it's all from the okra (my guess is the latter).

We biked on and on, around Audobon park, down by the Mississippi, back up around through the garden district, and stopped for a forgettable blueberry muffin at a coffee shop whose name escapes me.

After getting turned around (and having highway overpasses mysterious appear between us and our final destination), we carried our bikes over a pedestrian overpass and eventually made our way home. For dinner, I joined the gentleman I had conned into joining me for a "shot and a haircut - ten bucks" at Acme's, and we went to K-Paul's, but sadly I have nothing good to say. I had the blackened Louisiana Drum, and while the fish itself was pretty good, everything else was lacklustre (to the point that the mashed potatoes were lukewarm and the piped-out sauce - I don't know what it was - was frozen). Oh well. I lived to eat another day...