© Merle Harton, Jr. | About | XML/RSS

Dinner at Antoine's

(This is an older fiction piece from my "New Orleans Memories" collection.)

It was sometime in April, and a doctor friend of mine and his wife were in town for a conference, and he gave me a call and wanted me and my live-in girlfriend Christine to go out to dinner with them. "Sure," I said. The dinner was free, after all. Since they wanted to go down to the French Quarter, I suggested Galatoire's, on Bourbon Street. It's a great place to eat and, besides, with all the mirrors and tiles around the wall, it looks just like a men's washroom and I thought that would really help to convey the spirit of New Orleans to my visitors. But instead they wanted to go to Antoine's, I guess because they liked wood floors and dim lights and big expensive bills. "No problem," I said. Anyway, the dinner was free.

So we all met down at Antoine's at 8 o'clock and went inside. We were directed to a nice table upstairs and a waiter named Paul came by with his hand out and took our order. It was a big meal. We started with Oysters Rockefeller, and then Oysters Bienville and Oyster Soup, which came with two hefty oysters floating obscenely in the bottom of the bowl. Everybody else had something different to eat for the main course, but I ordered fried oysters. Obviously something was missing from my diet and I was having a craving. Besides it was an "R" month and that meant the oysters would be firm, not mushy. [ MORE ]