Best Po' Boys ever: James Glassman of Opinion Journal writes about the conditions in New Orleans. Good areas and bad, as we all know. He also has some thoughts on the city's rebuilding and who should take charge. But none of that really matters right now, because I'm overjoyed with this bit of news.

Some live oaks have toppled, and many magnolias have died, but all the way to
the French Quarter, the shops and restaurants are open, and people have come
home.

There are crowds taking a number for po' boy sandwiches at Domilise's on Annunciation, locals lunching on shrimp remoulade and trout amandine at Galatoire's, and browsers examining the silver ice buckets at Lucullus Antiques on Chartres Street.

I can't possibly express what a run down little hole in the wall shack this place is. It's the front half of an old house that sits on the corner of Annunciation and who knows what street (I had to find it anew every time I went there, maybe once or twice a month. I would drive to to where I thought it was and be wrong every time, then have to drive a few block on Ann. till I found it.).

Dom's was quintisential New Orleans, in a sense. Amazing, huge po' boys, loaded with shrimp, oyster (or both, the Peacemaker), soft shell crab or hot roast beef. A really small bar that served draft beer in big, iced fish bowl glasses or ice cold Barq's Root Beer (sorry to disappoint Eno, but not every lunch in NOLA was an excuse to booze). And Zapp's chips, the best in the world. Dom's smelled like 75 years worth of fried seafood and cigarette smoke (not a bad smell, actually, but tough to get out of a sportcoat) and attracted a diverse clientele of white and black, blue collar and suits. You ate fast and didn't linger long, or they'd start eyeing you like a thief for taking up a perfectly good table (there was only seating for about ten people at tables and another few at the bar and at lunchtime there could easily be twenty people in line to order).

Enough memory lane blather. Just really glad to hear they survived, both the storm/flood, which isn't that surprising given the location, and the ensuing dearth of business. Next chance I get, I'll be there. Large oyster. Dressed.