depth first search

Our room at the Lamothe House was pleasing with an interesting layout and an amazingly squeaky king size bed and microscopically small sink. Our enviable location at the edge of the French Quarter had easy access to all the more low key (and more interesting) places and events, and more importantly Frenchman Street. We ended up at Snug Harbor for lunch the other day, followed by a detour to some place called The Orange Couch (everyone’s heard about it [they serve mochi], everybody thinks they know almost where it is, nobody really does — the lost coffee shop of coffee shops). On our roundabout semi-lost way to this mysterious establishment, we ended up at the Iron Rail Book Collective, an anarchist establishment operating out of a warehouse. Definitely not on the tourist map. The collective seemed to specialize in far left pamphlets and zines, the sort of subversive literature that persists more through photocopies than file sharing. Interestingly enough, we were able to finally locate the mochi-selling Orange Couch by collectively querying the customers of the coop (actually the owner did it for us).

The Orange Couch, as most everybody could recall, really does have an orange couch inside an impressively and otherwise white decor. The mochi (ice cream wrapped in dough), came in several flavors. We tried pistachio, blueberry, and mango. This coffee shop was decidedly west coast, run by a former bay area émigré. The kind of non-local establishment that locals (who are probably somewhat tired of all things Cajun and Creole) would desire to frequent. Pictures of Banksy’s New Orleans series hung on the walls. The mochi were delicious.

We’re now staying at Creole Gardens, a bed and breakfast with about 18 rooms located in the transitional neighborhood between the garden district and the warehouse district technically called the lower garden district. We’re one block from the St. Charles street car and two blocks away from Emeril’s Delmonico — a joint we are avoiding assiduously. The notable feature of this establishment is the hot breakfast (this morning – eggs, bacon, sausage, and grits) prepared to order by Ms. Annie, a polite short order cook working out of the small kitchen next to the dinning hall.

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