doing a business trip there from may 5-8. might try to get there since the 4th to get some time to enjoy the city on my own.

need to stay as close as possible to the hilton new orleans riverside. looks like the hotel itself is full or we would stay there. i more than likely will be the one recommending the hotel so any suggestions would be appreciated.

how hot is it going to be????

unfortunately it seems i developed an allergy to shellfish so that sucks. what other food must i try when im there??? any specific restaurants within walking distance of the hilton? most of the free time will probably be spent in business meetings/events but there might be an opening for a lunch or dinner or two where we can pick where we eat.

if i do get a day to myself what should i do? i would uber or walk everywhere.

any other random tidbits??

thinking about booking this one

CAMBRIA HOTEL NEW ORLEANS DOWNTOWN WAREHOUSE DISTRICT
632 Tchoupitoulas Street, New Orleans, LA, 70130, US

it has great reviews and a really good price. the boss is reluctant because he has never heard of them. im considering staying there even if he decides to stay at a further one lol we book our own hotels. it would be ideal to stay in the same one but knowing we will be walking to the event id rather stay within 0.5 miles from it.

hes looking at some that are 1.5 miles away. i know we will be walking all day so walking back to the hotel at the end of the day wont be fun.

Probably mid-80s and very humid, if it's like other places in the deep south.

never look forward to that humidity. its early may so maybe it wont be so bad?? but yeah im figuring its going to be similar humidity wise.

im thinking im going to take extra clothes for multiple showers a day lol

Depends on what sort of stuff you like.

Harrahs - If you gamble, it's fun. If you don't....no reason to go.

Drinking - This is the city for it. It's Vegas-like in that way. There are plenty of dope bars, but generally speaking - stay away from Bourbon Street as it's amateur hour and the drinks suck. You can walk it or whatever, but if you do - just go during the day. There's a good amount of construction going on (or maybe it's done...I dunno, I was there a few months ago and it'd been going on for over a year), so FYI. Going AGAINST my advice for a second - there's a GREAT bar on Bourbon, just past all the bullshit called Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. Get a hurricane there and hang for a bit.

Frenchman St - go here, for sure. Great food, great music everywhere, and awesome bars. It's the Bourbon Street for people who know what they're doing in NOLA. It's rad.

Food - Obviously, it's fucking EVERYWHERE. Some places to go - Willie Mae's Scotch House is the best fried chicken I've ever had, Pesce, Cafe Du Monde is sorta a must, Johnny's Po Boys, Commander's Palace for a nicer dinner...there's a million places to go, and I'm not much of a shellfish fan myself so all these have great options for you.

New Orleans is the shit - but be careful on business trips.

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17x NBA Champions

>Depends on what sort of stuff you like.
there will be three of us. good to check out stuff even if we dont all partake.

>
>Harrahs - If you gamble, it's fun. If you don't....no reason
>to go.
>
>Drinking - This is the city for it. It's Vegas-like in that
>way. There are plenty of dope bars, but generally speaking -
>stay away from Bourbon Street as it's amateur hour and the
>drinks suck. You can walk it or whatever, but if you do - just
>go during the day. There's a good amount of construction going
>on (or maybe it's done...I dunno, I was there a few months ago
>and it'd been going on for over a year), so FYI. Going AGAINST
>my advice for a second - there's a GREAT bar on Bourbon, just
>past all the bullshit called Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. Get a
>hurricane there and hang for a bit.

i will keep this in mind. im definitely more into hitting real local spots instead of tourist traps. i think the guys im going with love tourist stuff though but i will try to pry them away from bourbon st lol

>
>Frenchman St - go here, for sure. Great food, great music
>everywhere, and awesome bars. It's the Bourbon Street for
>people who know what they're doing in NOLA. It's rad.

about to google this, definitely looking for some good food and music, especially if i spend a day there on my own.

>
>Food - Obviously, it's fucking EVERYWHERE. Some places to go -
>Willie Mae's Scotch House is the best fried chicken I've ever
>had, Pesce, Cafe Du Monde is sorta a must, Johnny's Po Boys,
>Commander's Palace for a nicer dinner...there's a million
>places to go, and I'm not much of a shellfish fan myself so
>all these have great options for you.
thats good to know, some places you love not being a shellfish fan. i will have to keep these in mind. i feel i have to do a po boy, cafe du monde is sticking so im going to look it up

>
>New Orleans is the shit - but be careful on business trips.
expound

I gave up on Hurricanes completely after the first day because even the doubles felt like virgin drinks. I liked Bourbon for the most part other than that, mostly because there's something going on every 10 feet, and every other place has live music. I was there last week and didn't see any construction going on.

Frenchman was dope, and more chill than Bourbon. Definitely more of a local/less touristy vibe. Only thing was that almost every spot with live music had a one drink minimum

Willie Mae's was good as fuck. Probably better to go during the week. We hit on on a monday night and still had about a half hour wait. I can't imagine that place on the weekend. Food was awesome literally everywhere we went tho

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id=65348&mesg_id=65348&listing_type=search

*******************************************************
i will not let finite disappointment undermine infinite hope
- Cory Booker

Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes, and at the end the Germans always win
- Gary Lineker

I wanted to go this year. Ruby Slipper has a bomb breakfast. Make sure to get a snoball. Hate you have that allergy b/c the chargrilled oysters at Dragos are BOMB.

Try Mia Xs restaurant lol I think it’s called 2nd & Ds? That food looks GOOT

i looked a bit into jazzfest. need to refresh on it, i might do saturday. from what i remember the names that jumped at me most were on days i wasnt going to be there.

>I wanted to go this year. Ruby Slipper has a bomb breakfast.
>Make sure to get a snoball. Hate you have that allergy b/c the
>chargrilled oysters at Dragos are BOMB.
i think oysters are not related to shrimp so unless i have an allergy to those as well i would be good. ive never tried them and they dont sound good to me lol. might need to give it a go as a replacement for shrimp?? i will google ruby slipper.

>
>Try Mia Xs restaurant lol I think it’s called 2nd & Ds? That
>food looks GOOT
i will google.

thanks

Tipatina's and Preservation Hall for sure, Frenchmen street for some dive-y bar hopping with music.

The shellfish allergy sucks as it limits a lot of the local fare but you can still get redfish and all sorts of other non-shellfish seafood. Ba Mien for Vietnamese. Commander's Palace for a uniquely Southern (albeit pricey) dining experience. GW Fin's for fish filets. Verti Marte for po' boys, shits are on point and it's a 24-hour mini-mart type spot. Skip Mother's but on the next block there is a spot with a fried chicken thigh that is so fucking deliciously spicy that it's a must if you love heat. There are a lotta good places but you're only there a few days so lemme tell you the one thing I think you *have* to eat. A spot called Turkey and the Wolf. You can't go wrong with any of the options but do not miss the Collard Green Melt. Oh my fucking God. The flavor is just explosive and satisfying, best goddamn sandwich I have ever eaten and it might be the best thing I have ever eaten period.

The strip clubs and shit seem kinda shitty, I was with my jawn when we went but I had a boys night out and we peered around. Meh. The women are pretty cool though, we flirted a lot and I found them very refreshing compared to California girls.

Museums and stuff, the jazz museum is small but pretty cool. The WWII museum is huge and elaborate, definitely the biggest museum type attraction, though obviously it depends if you're interested in WWII stuff.

Overall I just say fuck it, hit the street, listen to music, get tipsy, stuff yourself. Great people, great food.

And you will know MY JACKET IS GOLD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

definitely interested in food, music and museum/art stuff.

i might have saturday afternoon and sunday morning to explore. rest of the time might be tied up with business folks.

we are probably staying on canal street. supposedly we wont be walking and will do uber/taxis but i am sure i will need to get to/from the even on my own a few times. are the street cars an efficient way to go a 1/1.5 miles? are they typically too busy to count on them? service too infrequent? not the best crowd on them? it would be nice to be able to count on them. i tried looking into it on the website but there was too much info and i wasnt focused lol ill need to check it out again.

i need to know how frequently they pass, what the cost is and i guess the hours they run.

super old school. i think the oldest streetcars in the country. i think they run every 15 minutes or so. and all night. they're 1.25 a ride or for $3 you can just get a day pass.

Canal is a good spot to stay since you're pretty much close to everything. Bourbon/French Quarter is all right there, armstrong park isn't far. Harras is close if you want to gamble,

We walked from Canal to Frenchman street. its a bit of a walk but I love walking in new cities. I'll walk for hours just to see what I'll run into.

just do sun-wed. sat is like $200 for a hotel anywhere near there at best case. not sure i want to spend that plus expenses just to get an extra day there.

what side of town?

http://instagram.com/schemeofthings

>doing a business trip there from may 5-8. might try to get
>there since the 4th to get some time to enjoy the city on my
>own.

Here are my two cents. I have lived in New Orleans for 10 years.


There are a ton of hotels within walking distance of the Hilton. It really depends on availability. That is the last weekend of Jazz Fest. There is a lot going on so availability is going to be interesting. http://www.nojazzfest.com
>
>how hot is it going to be????

HOT. 80s with a bunch of humidity.

>
>unfortunately it seems i developed an allergy to shellfish so
>that sucks. what other food must i try when im there??? any
>specific restaurants within walking distance of the hilton?
>most of the free time will probably be spent in business
>meetings/events but there might be an opening for a lunch or
>dinner or two where we can pick where we eat.

New Orleans is a walking city. You can get to most places by walking, streetcar or a short Uber/Lyft ride. There is no place that you would go that is longer than a 15 minute drive.

There are a ton of restaurants in the area. A few faves are Cochon (pork is the main attraction in the restaurant), Herbsaint (if you are not paying), Marcello's (next door to Herbsaint, good Italian food). There are also the many touristy but quality restaurants downtown (Emeril's spots, Arnaud's, Galatoire's, or the many Brennan restaurants.

I am also partial to Black-owned spots:

The new hot spot is Morrow's. (http://morrowsnola.com) You will need to take a Lyft there and they do not take reservations. Food is great and the happy hour crowd is live.

Also, I like Cafe Sbisa. (https://www.cafesbisanola.com). You can walk there from your hotel.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.


>
>if i do get a day to myself what should i do? i would uber or
>walk everywhere.

WWII Museum, Frenchmen Street for music and nightlife (spend as little time on Bourbon Street as possible), take the St. Charles streetcar uptown and get off at spots on the route and experience New Orleans (Audubon Park, Carrolton (Oak Street). Also, check out the New Orleans Jazz Museum (past the French Market and Cafe du Monde) and the recently reopened African American Museum in the Treme.
>
>any other random tidbits??

Check out the Gambit (https://www.theadvocate.com/gambit/) for events and news, WWOZ LiveWire (https://www.wwoz.org/calendar/livewire-music) for live music.

*America's Favorite*

after the WWII museum and just walking looking for a spot to eat. I didn't know their pork rep so wound up having gator bites and grits lol. It's also the first place I got a decent drink after getting watered down bourbon street drinks.

>There are a ton of restaurants in the area. A few faves are
>Cochon (pork is the main attraction in the restaurant),

thanks for all the suggestions. i didnt get to pick much but i tried.

overall i enjoyed NO a lot. its a fun place and the food is awesome. besides the airport the "worst" food i had was good.

sunday we hit Felix's oyster bar ..or something like that. had some chargrilled oysters and jambalaya. the jambalaya did have shrimp. no symptoms worse than before and only after i had finished my meal. oysters were pretty good, didnt get grossed out at all.

then we walked bourbon street for like 2 hours. as soon as we got on it my boss kept saying, i know yall want to get a drink. just let me know when. after 3 or 4 times of him saying that it was obvious he wanted to get a drink lol. after we walked it and the next street down i was ready to go to the hotel but he really wanted to get a drink so we walked back and picked a bar. it was like 3 pm so it wasnt very busy. the street was pretty busy but not a lot of people sitting at the bar. we chilled for a bit then walked back to the hotel.

my room was not available for check in yet but it wasnt supposed to be available unitl 4 so whatever. we chilled at my coworkers room until 4. i went down and still not ready. got a free breakfast out of it but i really wanted to relax in my room and iron my clothes before our dinner with a vendor. oh well.

we went to dinner around 6 pm at cane and table. when we had looked up the menu we were like eh and asked the vendor to switch the venu. boss wanted to do acme oyster bar but they didnt do reservations so we just kept it there. we met up with the vendor and had some drinks for like over an hour. i really wanted to sit down lol. i was happy when we finally got a table. we had pork skins, asparagus and ribs as apps. really good. i ordered the arroz con pollo hesitantly (i wanted to stick to seafood but i didnt want to push it with a shrimp plate). the arroz con pollo was soooooo good. it was a huge plate too and i did not share lol.

this was the vendor we have had problems with and i was fearful they were going to lay some bad news on us. nah they were very apologetic for the issues weve had and just expressed they wanted to strengthen the relationship. cool.

after dinner we said peace to them and walked to frenchmen st. it was much more active than bourbon was earlier and seemed pretty cool. after less than 30 mins we called it a night. took a cab back to the hotel. when we get out of the cab the boss says he wants to walk somewhere and get a drink. i was beat so i declined and went to my room. i think it was around 9. im sure i was out by 10. I think they went back to bourbon st.

Next morning I was the first one down so I got my free breakfast while I waited. When they came down they were like eh we will wait to eat at the event, its continental breakfast. When we got there it was just muffins lol.

We walked to a spot for lunch, Ernst cafe. I had a shrimp poboy. It was good but nothing special, did feel a bit of symptoms after again. After lunch we ended up going our own way at the convention. At 6 we met the boss back at the hotel. We already had an event set up at like 7:30 for dinner but they wanted to go to acme. I declined again. I needed to rest. I ended up walking to the house of blues event and they got there a bit later. They said I missed out and I’m sure I did but I would of been happy to have dinner and get back to the hotel. I knew that wasn’t going to happen so better to rest when I can. The even had some nice crab legs, oysters and shrimp. I don’t think I felt a thing this time. I’m trying to remember if I had shrimp. We were at the event until like 10. They had a band and it was cool. Then we hit bourbon st. Umm yeah fun lol. We were on the street chilling for a while then went into a bar with karaoke. It was cool. Then we walked to another with a live band, this spot was great. Lead singer looked like biz markie lol. They did a variety of music and they were really good.

When we walked back to the hotel coworker tried to get a pro for me. I was not with it. I think we were out until 4/5 am lol. Boss said we would meet at the lobby at 7…I just nodded and laughed inside.

I did wake up like at 6:30 but knew it would be pointless to be at presentations so went back to sleep. I didn’t get any calls or text so I figured my boss and coworker did the same. Around 11 I was ready and shot my coworker a text asking if were still going to have lunch with a vendor. He said he wasn’t, he was at the presentations but that the boss was going to, he wasn’t sure where the boss was lol. I texted the boss and he said he was on his way to have lunch with the vendor. I ended up telling him id grab lunch on my own and meet later at the convention.

I went to the ruby slipper. Had an egg omelette. Pretty good but again nothing special. Got through the convention, sitting whenever I could lol. We went back to the hotel, we had dinner lined up so we pretty much just changed and headed out. This dinner was at bourbon house. This was worth the trip just by itself. we got drinks and the vendor ordered some appetizers. Shrimp, 3 dozens of different oysters (chargrilled, topped with crawfish, crabmeat, caviar), crab claws (omg the meat was so sweet) and something else maybe? This was sooooo soooo good. I think the apps were plenty to have called it a dinner but we still got entrees. We all got redfish. This was also so good. Then some desserts. Awesome dinner and absolutely free lol.

Then we walked bourbon street and went to another event. This was basically just hanging out in a balcony on bourbon street. The balcony across us was giving a show lol I’m sure some of the girls were pros. We ended up walking back to the second bar from last night and again the band was great. I think we called it a night around 3 am this time.

Our flight was at 11:50 but the boss wanted to leave the hotel at 8. Would of been nice to had gotten better sleep. We were scheduled to get home around 4 pm so whatever. Right before we board the plane (I was at the front of group c, they board a and b) they stopped us. Said there was a weather delay and were grounded for at least an hour. That turned to 3 hours. We had breakfast when we got there and it was okay. We ended up having lunch at the airport and that was not good. Options are so bad at the airport. We get to Austin at like 4:00 pm and have to wait until 9 for our flight. I ended up having some bbq at salt lick, they had burgers. This bbq was so good, especially the pork. Didn’t end up home until after 11 pm.

All in all it was a good trip and I definitely would love to go back to NO.

.

_______________________________________

granted no big item in there to hang the climatic label on... sounds like you had a pretty good time.. and like you might be figuring out this allergy a little more specifically.... if I were you though leave them shrimps alone... try crab again and see if you consistently get away with it... I like crab more than shrimp myself.

so i know there were a couple of items i meant to come back to but i ended up skipping because it got so long and folks kept passing by.

i ended up copy and pasting to a text file so i could type more comfortably and because i know okp times out if you leave a reply open for too long.

on the second night on bourbon st coworker went after another pro. she walked with us almost all the way back to the hotel. i think the coworker and boss were giving her enough vibes that they might be interested while i guess my not interested face is quite effective lol

she ended up grabbing them and trying to convince them. even at some point mentioned all three of us. i started sprinting away in my head lol

i think the coworker was trying to get one of us to get one so he wouldnt feel bad about getting one.

as far as shrimp...i think i do need to try different things by themselves. crab definitely is one. lobster. liking oysters was a big win. gives me another option that has no connection to shrimp as far as allergies goes.

most food seemed to be focused on shrimp or crawfish in NO so that wasnt the place to get a plate of crab legs lol

that last night at bourbon house gave me zero symptoms. hopefully when i try crab/lobster/oysters by themselves i get no symptoms. if so at some point i might try shrimp again and see if i live. lol

not my scene anyway but the whole idea of hiring a pro on a work trip is wild.. like who wants that in the back of their bosses mind let alone in their hr file? I guess it depends on the vibe and culture of the team but still.. yo if that's what buddy wanted he should've just been discreet.. I can only imagine what that was like.

For real though, how did the shoes hold up for you? Do you, in the end, believe the investment was worth it?

Edit: And yeah... I read all of that too! LOL

--- praying for peace, love, and power

as comfy as i could ever expect dress type shoes to be. theyre not sneakers level comfort but they are by no means uncomfortable. i would definitely wear these without concern when i need to dress up and be on my feet a lot.

i didnt even need to use my insoles with them.

good recommendation on them for sure. thanks!

--- praying for peace, love, and power

The band. They’re dope.

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17x NBA Champions

they are really dope.

Bourbon Street kinda is what it is, and I'm in my mid 30s so I'm not trying to drink grenades or whatever - but on the right night in the right bar with a great band - it's SO fun. We stumbled into whatever bar that was they played at (Kazzoo or something?) but they're excellent.

(Also I clearly go to Nola too often for me to just guess based off of a band with a singer that looks like Biz Markie on Bourbon, hahah)

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17x NBA Champions