#12 Baton Rouge Open
Baton Rouge Open
May 18, 2024
No one in my bracket or in open class. Turns out I was the oldest female registered for the entire tournament. Here is the women’s oldest master levels at each belt level:
White Belt - Master 1
Blue Belt - Master 3
Purple Belt - Master 4 (me)
Brown Belt - Master 2
Black Belt - No master women!
I was really surprised to see no black belts over 30 competing, but I’ve never checked the other belts before so maybe it’s common.
This tournament was very small. The first time I’ve seen only 3 mats setup.
I’m not sure why they bother with Baton Rouge when New Orleans usually has 2 tournaments a year and it’s only a little over an hour away. I picked up my 2 gold medals and left town pretty quickly. It was LSU’s graduation that day, so the town was super busy. I spend most of my time in New Orleans instead.
Key Takeaways
I weighed in at 158lbs, still 6lbs over the next weight bracket. I need to get more disciplined about moving down in the weight brackets.
Current goals
Win a bracket
Score a takedown
Places I visited
Audubon Aquarium - A really nice aquarium and insect house right on the water and close to everything in the French Quarter. It was a nice break from the heat and had a cool variety of animals. Best part was the stingray touch tank!
Earth Odyssey - Very cool little gem shop that also does tarot card readings. The tarot readings are popular so we had to sign up for a slot the day before because that day was completely booked. I scheduled readings with Isabella for myself and my mom. My mom enjoyed her reading and at first I thought mine was good but not great. Isabella told me about a crossroads in romance and I would need to make a decision. I thought this was very unlikely and chalked it up to a misread…but sure enough less than a week after the reading an old flame came out of the woodwork…totally nuts! Not something I would have guessed, so clearly she knows her stuff!
Witches Brew: Ghosts, Voodoo, & Vampire Walking Tour - I signed us up for a walking tour. I thought it would be a cool way to see the city while learning about some of the city lore. The meeting place was easy to find. A bar was nearby and they encouraged people to grab drinks before starting the tour. I kept forgetting that you can walk around with drinks in New Orleans. Our guide was great, she kept everything super factual and was well researched. It was a lot of walking and even more standing. The standing was a little rough on the feet. We did take a small break at a bar and lost about half the group there. We had a group of women that were mainly interested in finding sexy vampires and as soon as the guide told them where to go for that and the several different types of vampires they could find, those ladies were gone and looking for some vampire romance. Six of us remained and finished the tour. We didn’t actually go into any buildings and the only downside was we ended far away from where we started, so I needed to navigate my way back through the city to my car. Tour was about 1.5 hrs long.
Restaurants I visited
The Court of Two Sisters – Reservation was needed for this place. There is a jazz brunch they do on Saturdays that was already full, so I opted for a dinner reservation our first night in town. It was extremely busy with a wedding happening in the front room. Even with our reservation we waited a bit. I tried a virgin Hurricane which I was told is a classic New Orleans drink. It tasted like rainbow sherbert and was a delight. There was a small french baguette and butter to start. The bread was very light, too light for me. I prefer a hardy bread. I ordered the shrimp and grits and my mom ordered the crawfish and shrimp pasta. I wasn’t thrilled with my shrimp and grits. It had a dark gravy on it and wasn’t cheesy like I expected. My mom’s pasta was really good with a parmesan sauce. We ended up switching dishes. We ended the meal with their signature bananas foster which is prepared tableside. The bananas foster was so, so good and definitely a must have.
Antoines – Reservation also needed and a dress code. Being from the PNW dress codes are non-existent here, so I was little worried since I’m always pretty casual. My biggest concern was the fact that I only wear flip flops. Dress code specifically called out ‘no flip-flops’. My mom brought some sandals for me so it would look a little nicer while still having my flip flop feel. They didn’t kick us out, but they did seat us in the front area where they seem to put the more casual diners. Our waitress, Fairy, was amazing. She took very good care of us. Again the french bread and butter started the meal and again the bread was way too light and barely felt like I was eating anything. My mom started with Oysters Rockefeller which we didn’t realize was invented at that restaurant! My mom loved them. She then ordered a bowl of the gumbo. I ordered the shrimp and grits, determined to try again. We also shared a side of lobster mac n’ cheese. My mom’s gumbo was not good. I tried it and it was a plain soup with a generic seafood taste. No chunks of anything in it, completely smooth. It desperately needed salt and there was none on the table. We threw some of the mac n’ cheese in it and some of my shrimp and grits and those worked to make it more tasty. I thought the lobster mac n’ cheese was just ok. I’ve had better. But my shrimp and grits were great. A rich sauce and super cheesy grits it was exactly what I wanted the night before.
Cafe Beignet – As soon as I booked this trip I couldn’t wait until I had some coffee and beignets. I had beignets for the first time over 20 years ago in Savannah, Georgia. They were these amazing light pillows of goodness. I was looking forward to that same light fluffy pastry. I was shocked when I bit into a New Orleans beignet and found a thick heavy cakey dessert. Not at all what I was expecting. My mom described it like Italian Zeppola. The coffee was good though.
Cafe Du Monde – I buy this coffee at home and love it, so I was really looking forward to this place. I already knew the beignets would likely not be what I wanted but I ordered some anyway. We ordered 2 coffees, 2 waters, and 2 orders of beignets. I even double checked with the waiter that he had the right order and he waved me off, saying he got it. He came out with 1 coffee (not the one we ordered), 1 water, and 1 order of beignets. The place was packed and we were in a time crunch so I didn’t have the time to try to get it fixed. So fairly disappointed with the service and didn’t bother trying the coffee since it wasn’t the right drink.
Envie Espresso Bar – Was told this was the best coffee in town. It was a bit of a walk but got there and the coffee was good, but pretty much similar to anything you get at most coffee places here in Seattle. So nothing terribly special.
Walking food tour – I love a walking food tour. I prefer to do them the first day of a trip so I can revisit the restaurants I really liked, but all of the tours were full except for Sunday, my last day. This tour was 3 hours! The longest I’ve been on and totally didn’t need to be 3 hours. It was only 6 restaurants and usually I have tours that get done in 2 hours. We stopped a lot and the guide spoke about the history, I’m guessing maybe to give restaurants time to prepare for us. It was way too long. We started with some packaged praline shortbread cookies that I put in my purse and forgot about, but when I got back home I found them and gave them to Endo. He said they were really good.
1st stop: Calas - After my disappointment with the beignets these were a pleasant treat. Spiced rice balls deep fried and covered in condensed milk, honey, and powdered sugar. I loved them.
2nd stop: Alligator sausage - We stopped in the open air french market and got some alligator sausage on a stick. It was mixed with pork and smelled really good. That’s where my tasting stopped. I’m not a big meat fan to begin with, mainly sticking to seafood and I wasn’t interested in trying the sausage. My mom did though and she enjoyed it more than she expected.
3rd stop: Shrimp Po Boy - I was really looking forward to trying one of these. I was a little disappointed. It tasted like a BLT but instead of bacon it was shrimp. Not terrible, but not something that was popping with flavor. I put a bunch of hot sauce on it, which was good, but still not something I’d crave
4th stop: Gumbo Ya-Ya - This gumbo was much more flavorful than the gumbo we had earlier in the trip. I didn’t eat any of the meat but was able to eat everything else. It was good, but not something I would order.
5th stop: Baked Oysters - I don’t like oysters so I skipped this one as well. My mom really enjoyed getting 2 though.
6th stop: Pralines - skipped. I originally scheduled an earlier tour, but there weren’t enough people in it, so they moved us to a later tour. The later tour ended very close to when we needed to leave for the airport, so we decided to skip the last stop to make sure we had time to get the rental car back. The guide said the last stop was for a praline, so I picked some up at the airport. Maybe not as good as what would be on the tour but gave me a chance to try it.
Upcoming tournaments:
July 20: Virginia Open
July 25: Orlando Open
Aug 29: Master Worlds
My shoulder is slowly getting worse. It’s been almost a year since I injured it and 6 months since I had treatment for the frozen shoulder. I decided to still do Virginia Open since I have family I want to visit while in Virginia, but I’m canceling Orlando and Master Worlds, because I don’t feel like I can really be competitive with this injury. I’ve been trying to work through it and I feel like it’s holding back my progress. I have another appointment with the surgeon that fixed my right shoulder a few years ago, so I'm hoping he can help with my left shoulder.
