• Who: Cyril, Greta, Baby Daddberg (in utero)
• Where: H Street
• What: Beignets for the table, veggie omelet (fries instead of home fries), bloody mary

Okay, well Hurricane Irene kind of sucked. At least in the 15 block region of DC I frequent, it sucked.  Walking out of my apartment on Sunday morning, I was encountered with the devastation below (note the Geo in the bottom left—luckily it was unscathed):

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Sorta reminds you of the aftermath of the great DC Earthquake of 2011, right?

Since we couldn’t get our hurricane fix from Irene, we had to go elsewhere to find it. Tru Orleans, a NOLA-themed restaurant/gallery on the hill was clearly the only pun-intended choice. Beads on the ceiling, Abita on tap and three types of, you guessed it, HURRICANES on the menu—we couldn’t have been any more New Orleans if we’d actually been sitting at Cafe du Monde.

But was this a tasteless choice? Is it wrong for us to associate 2011 New Orleans, a city rich with so much culture and history, with the Super Dome, George Bush hating black people and Zeitoun as readily as we do with the French Quarter, Louis Armstrong and the Saints? Or is the 21st century version of New Orleans just as much a part of the city’s culture and history as King Cake, Dixieland and drive through Daiquiri stands? Never having lived or worked much below I-70, I don’t pretend to know the answer to this question. I do know that six years after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, there are still abandoned houses in the 9th ward with spray painted x’s on the doors and mildewed family photographs on the floor inside—along with tens of thousands of people who will never be able to return home. So while H St NE may always be Bourbon Street’s ugly stepsister, New Orleans should feel the same in DC as it does in Louisiana—the good and the bad; the fun and the sad. Hurricanes, Jazz Fest, Mardis Gras beads, and all.