Getting down in New Orleans

NEARLY five years it has been now, since Hurricane Katrina. Five years since the talking heads warned us that New Orleans culture was in danger of disappearing. Five years since the naysayers said the city that care forgot should be forgotten, left to the history books.

Shows how much they know. Everywhere you look in today's New Orleans, even in the most hard-bitten and storm-damaged sections of the city, there are signs of life.

Perfect? No. You want perfect, you go see New Orleans Square, over at Disneyland. Floods or no floods, being perfect was never what New Orleans was about — it was about getting down, getting a little dirt on you, having some fun and eating (and/or drinking) too much.

Lorin Gaudin

Fresh shrimp from Lake Pontchartrain at Zimmer's, a po-boy joint buried deep in the tourist-free Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans.

Photos: Keepin' it real in New Orleans

For your next visit to New Orleans — and maybe it should be soon? — here are a handful of mini-adventures into some sections of the city only a mother could love. And yes, we promise — oil spill or no — there’s still some really, really good seafood left. We only ate most of it.

GET DOWN (IN THE TREME)

Can David Simon do for New Orleans what he did for Baltimore? That is to say, immortalize its best and worst qualities in a critically-acclaimed HBO series?

The first season of Simon’s “Treme” wrapped recently, and while the show doesn’t yet answer that question definitively, we know one thing — we’ll tune in next time and see what’s happening. Meantime, there’s always the actual Treme (treh-MAY), a mostly-residential area steeped in history, just north of that other famous historic area, the French Quarter.

Historically a home to free blacks and epicenter of the area’s distinct Creole culture, the neighborhood stretches from Rampart Street up to Broad Street between Esplanade and Orleans Avenues. You’ll find the neighborhood at its best in the section between Louis Armstrong Park and Esplanade Avenue, just out of the Quarter. Here, landmarks like the gorgeous St. Augustine Church (1210 Governor Nicholls St.) sit side by side with homes as impressive as any in the quieter parts of the Quarter.

Get a feel for the city’s colorful culture inside the small but effective Backstreet Cultural Museum ($8, 1116 St. Claude Avenue), then sample the lunch buffet at that bastion of Creole culture, Dooky Chase, one of the city’s most consistently appealing classics. The dining room is a who’s who of New Orleans. Mrs. Leah Chase is in charge here — make sure to compliment her on the fried chicken, it’s pretty great (lunch buffet served weekdays, $17.95; 2301 Orleans Avenue).

IN THE WEEDS