Today may be a bit food oriented because well, we ate a couple of good meals and then spent time at a convention... That's what we did. Actually who am I kidding? All of my posts have to do with food.

I spent the morning getting ready for my presentation and so we decided to go to Mona's Cafe (Lebonese) for an early lunch then head over to the Hyat. We both had Gyro/Sharma sandwiches which were very nice. It's nice to have flavor in our food. 

With breakfast/lunch out of the way we made our way to the Hyatt for Linuxcon. Kris joined me to listen to Linus Torvalds speak and then disappeared until later to listen to me speak. The rest of the Linuxcon crew joined a parade from the Hyat to the House of Blues with floats and police blockades too. New Orleans will do anything for a parade. Kris and I considered going along but then decided that after spending 5 days in a crazy city we could use some solitude so we headed west. We ran into a benefit to help raise money for food at the Lafayette Square. From there we caught the St Charles Streetcar and intended on riding it to the very end - we were going uptown.

When we stayed in the Garden District we saw quite a few old houses on our self guided tour but I'd recommend anyone interested in the old mansions to board the St Charles Streetcar and ride it at least until it makes a sharp right turn and just hang their head out the window to view many many old houses. Our ride was interrupted at Napoleon Avenue due to work being done on the streetcar line so the transit company put us on a bus and we rode to the end of the line on Carrollton Street. We were headed to a restaurant called Boucherie which is a French/New Orleans fusion restaurant that gets great reviews. At this point we're fairly convinced that the local food has humble beginnings and doesn't end any better so we're packing it in and eating anything that tastes great. The Commander's Palace/Kpaul/Cochon type of restaurants make great food even if they're really not that southern.

We arrive at Bouchon and it's about a million degrees out and the humidity is high enough that fish are sprouting wings. The very nice but formal young man at Bouchon informs us that he could get us an outside table within the hour but inside was booked for the night. Um, thanks but we'll check around first before committing to eating in the depths of hell. On the way to Bouchon we passed another Lebanese place called Lebonon's Cafe which was very laid back and inviting so we went in.

We ordered Kibby which was very nice and set the stage for our meal. Kris had the Chicken Shwarma and I did combination Kebab which were both fantastic. The hummus... I must mention the hummus as it was fabulous. It seems like you can't mess up something like hummus but Lebonon's Cafe showed us that you can raise the bar and raise it they did. Very smooth and wonderful flavor. Another great non-New Orleans meal.

Having eaten way too much Lebanese food we chose to retrace the bus route with our feet until we could pick up our trolley again and we nearly made it before hopping a bus. A good day indeed.