Party Perfect in the Big Easy : This Reveler’s Tour Through Clubs, Restaurants and Jazz Spots Is Just a Practice Run for Mardi Gras

“Kick it into neutral and let it happen,” said a fellow named Bob I met someplace along the line on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans. If this is neutral, I remember thinking, it’s scary to imagine what this town’s like when they get around to putting it in gear.

Anyplace else you’d have to call the same behavior an all-out mass bender, but in New Orleans, the New Year’s Eve weekend celebration is just the gateway to the party express, now steaming toward Mardi Gras on Feb. 15. After that, it slows a bit, only to rev up all over again at the end of April when it’s time for 10 days of the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

In comparison to sustained blowouts like Mardi Gras and the Jazz Festival, New Year’s kind of pales. The crew I was hanging with, for instance, had no particular place to go, so it rallied in this great big old former brothel where I was staying. The host and hostess served duck soup, which quickly gave way to a split-sized bottle of a Swedish concoction called glogg, which is made with stupid quantities of flaming grain alcohol.

Then we piled into a couple of cabs, destination the Howlin’ Wolf, a rock club in the Warehouse District downtown (828 S. Peters St.), not far from the French Quarter. The quirky and delightful singer-songwriter Victoria Williams was onstage backed by the Continental Drifters, a pedigreed band--composed of a dB, a Bangle, a Cowsill, a couple of Subdudes and a guy from the Dream Syndicate--that has taken up residence in the Big Easy.

High spirits and cigarette smoke had no place to go in this low-ceilinged club, and as 2 a.m. approached, I rounded up a quartet of open-minded fun-havers to migrate over to GiO’s late show on Bourbon Street in the heart of the Quarter.

As these things go, the Bourbon Burlesque is a clean, well-lighted affair. Arriving a bit late, we took one of the few remaining tables, and by this time the stripping portion of GiO’s performance was history. Supremely self-possessed, generous, gymnastic, capable of doing things you probably haven’t seen before and pierced and tattooed in ways you probably haven’t thought of before, GiO has been called by Esquire magazine “the premier stripper of her generation.” Seeing is believing.

A woman like GiO, who has gained local celebrity as a legit stripper with her own radio show and national exposure with her video “How to Strip for Your Man,” has secrets to reveal about her adopted hometown. If you’re fortunate enough to have been referred as a friend-of-a-friend, as I was, she’ll tell you, for the price of a lunch, “how to have more fun in 16 hours in New Orleans than you can possibly imagine.” Not just a bunch of naughty stuff, either: She’s a real N’awlins booster.

Thus we had met 13 hours earlier at a very popular lunch spot called Uglesich’s (1238 Baronne St.) in a slightly out-of-the-way neighborhood. (“It’s not just unsafe,” GiO said of the area, “it’s ugly.”)

We ordered raw oysters, barbecued oysters, crawfish etouffe, crab cakes, a softshell crab po’ boy, a couple of Barq’s root beers and a couple of Buds. (Uglesich’s is the unlikeliest little lunchbox you ever did see. It’s got a badly weather-eaten wood plank exterior, neon beer signs, hand-scrawled notices on the walls, three kinds of hot sauce on the Formica table tops.) Seats about 30, max, with standing room for about 20 waiting on line. A very yeeee-haaa! buzz was alive in the place, which inspired the 70-ish proprietor to every 15 minutes or so put his tape player on one of the tables and sing along with “You Made Me Love You,” complete with the full Jolson repertoire of knee bends and arm gestures.

GiO took out a list of places to go and things to eat. She’d also brought along a copy of the Lagniappe, the Times-Picayune’s Friday entertainment guide that helps negotiate the ridiculous bounty of musical offerings in town on any given weekend.

Eats

I’m no foodie, but I know what I like, and I like spicy seafood. I put salt and pepper on just about everything before I even taste it, but in New Orleans that’s not necessary. What’s necessary is to eat lots, because it’s so good and because, let’s face it, partying in New Orleans usually includes more than the usual amount of drinking.

One of the buzz restaurants in town is Emeril’s (800 Tchoupitoulas), in the Warehouse District. The airy, expansive feel of the room is very Downtown New York (minus the attitude), but the menu is very New Orleans eclectic. Emeril used to cook at the more traditional Commander’s Palace and his own menu is rather more . . . exotic. For starters, you might have tried Emeril’s savory cheesecake of Louisiana lump crabmeat with a New Orleans style ravigote sauce and garnishes, or perhaps a caramelized medallion of gulf yellowfin tuna with a sesame ginger vinaigrette and fried squid ink noodles.

The Grilled gulf escolar with a saute of Louisiana crawfish sauce was almost too spicy, which is to say, just right. A dining companion ordered the roasted south Texas antelope venison chop with a kasha pilaf, haricot vert, sweet potato gaufrette and a natural reduction sauce. Road-kill by any other name, but tender and delicious just the same. Banana cream pie and chocolate pecan terrine for dessert.

But while there’s no good reason not to indulge, it’s not necessary to make a steady diet of such haute cuisine to have a wonderful eating experience in New Orleans. Many of the more down-to-earth Cajun, creole and soul food restaurants put out meals that are as satisfying as the fare in the fancy joints. An oyster is an oyster is an oyster, and they’re plentiful and cheap all over town.

I’d recommend a luncheon excursion up to Bucktown on Lake Pontchartrain; it’s sort of like going out to City Island, only it’s not in the Bronx and the food is better. At Fitzgerald’s Seafood Restaurant, here’s what you get with the special seafood platter ($16.95): Bucktown soups sampler (Creole turtle, file gumbo, seafood), crawfish pie, oysters bordelaise, stuffed mushrooms, sauteed crab fingers, grilled shrimp, fried softshell crab. The barbecue seafood plate consists of shrimp, oysters and trout in a spicy Cajun sauce. Bread pudding for dessert.

I’d also recommend a couple of late-night places to go after a night of carousing. The Clover Grill (900 Bourbon St.) is an old standby (pecan waffles with eggs and sausage hit the spot), and La Peniche (1940 Dauphine St.), in a neighborhood called the Marigny, not far from the French Quarter. It’s the sort of place that fills up at 3 a.m. with cops and night revelers, and is contra-indicated for those with an intolerance toward homosexuality. The grits and biscuits are a big hit. While we’re in the neighborhood, one more suggestion: the Praline Connection (542 Frenchmen St.), a straight-up New Orleans soul food place that won’t do you wrong.

Tunes

Tourists commonly make the mistake of confining themselves to the French Quarter, and it’s an easy one to make, since the official law enforcement/tourism line is that most of the rest of the town is too dangerous. Crime is on the lips of all the natives, and for good reason; New Orleans shares with Washington, D.C., the highest murder rate among the nation’s 50 biggest cities.

Bearing this in mind, and exercising extreme caution--calling United Cabs (tel. 522-9771) even when destinations were within a New York definition of walking distance--I moved around to the various nightclub districts (Uptown, the Warehouse District, Midtown and the Marigny) without difficulty. And even though I was traveling solo most of the time, people are so friendly that I never felt alone. Cover charges are cheap as well, sometimes nonexistent.

New Year’s night, for instance, I didn’t even go out until midnight and still hit three gigs. First stop was the Mid-City Bowling Lanes (4133 S. Carollton), the home of Rock ‘n’ Bowl, to catch George Porter’s band. Porter is the bassist for the Meters, a group that’s been on-again-off-again since the mid-’60s and which helped write the book on sophisticated funk. A banner over the bandstand reads “Bowl Lang Syne ’94.” The souvenir shirt slogan: “Rock & Bowl Will Never Die.” The place is a hoot.

Not far away, around the back of a bail bondsman’s storefront, the semi-legendary soul singer Irma Thomas keeps an intimate little club called the Lion’s Den (2655 Gravier St.). It’s perfectly tacky. Thomas and her sax player sang a ballad that brought the small but diverse audience of down-homers, local hipsters and trendy Euro-tourists to its feet, before she closed with “Respect.”

I piled into a cab with a foursome bound for Cafe Brasil (2100 Chartres St.) in the Marigny, where local favorites the Iguanas were playing. Brasil is known for its eclectic, quality booking policy and the knowing, nice-looking crowd it attracts. The Iguanas play the kind of Tex-Mex border music and roots-rock of which Los Lobos are the foremost exponents.

It just might be worth extending a weekend visit to New Orleans until Monday, partly because you’re going to need an extra day for re-entry, and so you can hit the Cajun dance Uptown at Tipitina’s (501 Napoleon Ave. at Tchoupitoulas). Probably the most famous New Orleans club, Tips is good-sized, with corrugated tin siding on the walls, beer signs and gig posters for decorations. It was a jes’ folks crowd that had turned out, with the convivial feel common to places where regulars get together for the intent purpose of social dancing.

On my last legs, I booked over to the Maple Leaf Bar (8316 Oak St.) for another gander at the Continental Drifters.

As I left town, the taxi went down St. Charles Avenue. Workmen were setting up bleachers, a sign that parade season would be starting momentarily. New Orleans was just getting ready to party.

GUIDEBOOK

New Orleans and All That Jazz

Getting there: Several airlines, including American, Continental and United, are offering restricted round-trip coach fares from LAX, beginning at $320 for travelers who book at least 21 days in advance, based on availability.

For more information: Contact the Greater New Orleans Tourist and Convention Commission, Superdome, 1520 Sugar Bowl Drive, New Orleans 70112; tel. 504-566-5608.