The NOLA Trip: An Introduction

Shortly after the four of us had been seated and given our menus, a pretty, smartly-dressed blonde waitress walked up to our table.

“You guys can take as long as you'd like with your menus, but I just wanted to let you know that we've got a nickel martini special for lunch,” she said.

I blinked.

We had gotten into our beautiful hotel room very late the night before, around 3 am. Being too exhausted after the long drive from Atlanta to really go out, we had mixed a couple of drinks in the room, chatted for just a bit, and fell dead asleep listening to Lauro's Oakenfold CD playing softly. We slept a bit late the next morning, but we were all still understandably woozy.

To make things worse, with the combined effects of my jet lag (from a 23-hour plane trip only three nights ago) and my cold medicine hangover (from a cold contracted during said trip) I was feeling pretty loopy.

Consequently, I was a bit confused by this bit of information the waitress had shared with us.

"I'm sorry, I thought you said you have a nickel martini special?"
"That's right."

Okay. Starting get my bearings. A 'nickel' martini must be their cute way of saying their martinis cost 5 bucks. I eyed the bar to the left. It was obviously stocked with only top-shelf liquor. I could vaguely make out the lovely blue Tanqueray bottles. Mmm. So 5 bucks for a martini didn't sound bad. Pretty damn good, in fact. This was, after all, a hotel restaurant.

Lauro and I had spotted it while walking through the lobby on our way to a quick morning stroll around the block for a breath of air and a cigarette while Mahmood and Andy finished showering and getting dressed. Normally, neither of us would have been particularly excited about a hotel restaurant, but this one had touted enough accolades (Esquire Magazine's Best New Restaurant of 2002, Food and Wine Magazine's Top 10 Best Hotel Restaurants List) that we decided to give it a shot.

"So your lunchtime martinis are 5 bucks? We were actually going to just order a bottle of wine."
"Nope, they're 5 cents apiece."

The waitress smiled patiently.

I tried to detect a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Or maybe some condescension towards these college kids who were obviously tourists from up North. I honestly tried. Nothing in the voice but honest good humor, and maybe just the tiniest bit of amusement.

I looked around the table at the boys, who were similarly dazed by this bit of information.

"Um, ok," I said, trying my best to sound like a suave, comfortable diner accustomed to being pampered with ridiculously low-priced martinis, instead of the stuttering freak that I was rapidly degenerating into. "That sounds great. I'll take a martini."

We went around the table specifying our preferences: gin or vodka, straight up or on the rocks. Mahmood, of course, ordered water with a wedge of lime.

I was expecting little more than a couple of olives just barely moistened with a drop or two of nicely chilled gin. I would have been satisfied with that. I'd gotten worse at bars in New York, and those drinks were a hell of a lot more expensive than a nickel.

What we actually got were monster-sized martini glasses filled so completely to the brim with perfectly mixed gin and vermouth (this was one of the few places where I ordered a martini and had the good fortune to receive something more than just cold gin) that we actually had to slurp some off the top before we could reasonably pick up the glasses.

We looked at each other and grinned.

That was the beginning of lunch at Rene Bistro, the first of a number of memorable meals in New Orleans during our winter road trip in 2003.


More later.