Our second day wandering the French Quarter started with a late lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Along with your meal you get a lot of Forrest Gump trivia, and even a little quiz from the waiter. And the food was excellent – a bowl of gumbo and a shared bucket of garlic and cajun prawns.

We followed lunch with a walk to the Mississippi River overlook. It’s always nice to be near the water, no matter where it is- it is very calming.

    

Heading back to the Quarter, I found this  interesting view of the cathedral with a Christmas tree in front of it. It seemed to fit very nicely!

The cathedral is on the far side of Jackson Square from Decatur Street. There is a lovely park in the middle, and stores up and down the two side roads, which are pedestrian malls, quiet on this day, but filled on the weekends.

After the stroll on the river, we went to Cafe du Monde on Decatur St. for the obligatory Cafe au Lait and Beignets, to have as our dessert. Fortunately, since the street was fairly quiet, we didn’t have a wait for our table, or for our order.

Since I once again forgot to photograph the order before it was gone,

I wandered over to another table and borrowed a picture of theirs. It was not difficult to find someone with the same order, because they only serve the one thing at Cafe du Monde. The difficulty lies in finding someone who hasn’t devoured their order immediately upon arrival. (As we did.)

After our coffee break, Mariah and Randy wandered off into the depths of the French Quarter, and since the Central Grocery  is just down the street from Cafe du Monde, I walked over to get another obligatory food item – a muffuletta. This delightful sandwich is made with a mix of Genoa salami, mortadella, ham, mozzarella, provolone, a delicious olive salad made with crushed (not chopped) Sicilian olives, gardiniera (a pickled, spicy Italian salad of mixed sliced vegetables), oregano, lots of oil, all in a crusty round muffuletta loaf, about 11″ across and topped with sesame seeds.

A quarter will fill you nicely, and when served with a Blackened Voodoo beer just FEELS like New Orleans.

I wanted to buy a lot more stuff, but I didn’t want to have to carry it back to the condo!

      

After our sandwich supper we returned to Bourbon Street for a Wednesday night treat – a Jazz jam session at Irwin Mayfield‘s Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonestra Hotel. They were an awesome group of musicians – five to begin with, then three more joining in here and there for a few pieces. Unfortunately Irwin himself was out of town, but the ensemble lived up to the tradition of excellent jazz in New Orleans, and all three sets were a treat.

(And I enjoyed a little oyster salad and some red wine to round out the evening!)