NOLA

On our first night in New Orleans, we had dinner at NOLA, one of Emeril’s 3 local restaurants. The food was very fancy and really delicious. We had two waiters. Travis was our main waiter, and he had an assistant, Mike. Here’s a little info on Travis:

Travis lives in Meraux, about 12 miles east of New Orleans. He used to live in Canyon Lake, TX, and when he learned that we were from west TX, he said that he likes desert scenery. He and his wife have a 20-month-old son, T.J. His wife is obsessive and calls home to check on T.J. anytime they go out to dinner. T.J. is a late talker, but Travis said that he knows once T.J. starts talking he won’t stop. Travis did a wonderful job explaining the menu to us, complete with multiple yummy noise sound effects when he came to a dish that was a personal favorite. Once we finally made our selections, he said “niiiiiiice” to each one. In addition to menu recommendations, he advised us to go to Frenchman Street after dinner. He said that it is much calmer than Bourbon Street, is for the mature crowd, and where many of the locals go. However, he did note that there are a couple of bars on that street where we could “get wild” if we wanted to. (Since we had the earliest reservation possible and were the only people in the restaurant not drinking wine, we think he might have been a little slow on the up-take.) Finally, the most useful information he gave us was his strong recommendation not to walk to wherever we were heading but instead take a taxi. He commented that he there had been several robberies in the area lately and one of the other waiters was recently shot a couple of blocks from the restaurant. We still ended up walking.

So, why did we tell you all this about Travis? He volunteered all of this information without us asking him a single question. He even took this picture of himself before taking pictures of us as we had requested.

Don't get the wrong idea. We had great service, and the food was wonderful. All in all, we had a great time. We just thought our experience with our waiter was a bit unique.