Winesday

Rene: Rich spice on the nose; get some coffee and dark berry flavors. The tannins are tight and restricted, wound up like a kid on Halloween. This wine screams out for something like rich duck with crispy skin or maybe lamb braised. Let's split the difference and go with the roast quail with steamed buns from Nine Roses. They also have it at Tan Dinh if you cross the bridge today and find Nine Roses closed.

Peter: This baby needs to open up for a bit to let the peppery flavors mellow out. Not much dryness going down the throat from the tannins. I'm thinking something gamey like venison. How about the wood fired goat at Domenica or the lamb neck from Herbsaint.

Joe the Wine Guy: The Numanthia 2007 is made from 100% Tinta de Toro and is both intense and complex with several layers of aromatics in the lively nose: red and black fruits first, then sweet spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and then vanilla and toasted black pepper. On the palate, this wine is expresses dark fruits with concentrated and velvety tannins. This full bodied wine shows exceptional acidity revealing some chocolate, toasted, and spicy notes. The juice was aged in new French oak Bordelaise barrels for 18 months. The 2007 Numanthia retails for $59.99 and you can find it at Emeril's and Cork & Bottle.

Stoltzfus

Michael Stoltzfus came to New Orleans from Maryland to work at John Besh's August. Not long after,  he and then girlfriend now fiancee, Lillian Hubbard opened Coquette on the corner of Washington and Magazine in December of 2008. Within a few months they had Four Beans from the Times Pic and the restaurant was well on its way to joining the roster of restaurants one has to eat at in New Orleans. In December, Stoltzfus will open his second eatery, Sweet Olive in The Saint Hotel. Let's put twentyish questions on the clock and get to know Michael Stoltzfus.

I was about to go to college and my mom opened a bakery. She said, "why don't you work here for a few weeks before school starts?" I never left for college. Started cooking breakfast and lunch in the back of the bakery. Got an Alain Ducasse book and just taught myself from there.

While I was working at my mom's in the morning, I was spending nights working at a fine dining restaurant in Chestertown, Maryland. Then I went to work at Julia's, probably the best restaurant at that time in Maryland. At Julia's I worked every position in restaurant- waiter, cook, manager- save bartender. After that, I went to work at August. Stayed there for a year and a half before this opportunity fell in our laps.

Losing all my money (laughs). Actually the thing I was most afraid of was not being able to cook. When you work for someone else, there is always a way to do things. Their vision, their recipe are what you use. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to cook food that was any good. When we opened, we had no idea what was going on with national economy. Luckily, Louisiana was pretty recession proof at that time. We were steady for the first five months, and then Brett Anderson reviewed us, and we took off from there. We had no idea he had been in, no idea we were on anyone's radar, and then the Times Picayune called to do a photo shoot for a review. We were shocked.

My approach to food has changed a lot. When we first opened, I was trying to emulate the cooking of the people I had learned from and so there was a heavy Besh presence to my food. In a way this was detrimental to my growth as a chef. A few years ago, something switched and my cooks and I started focusing our menu on what we would like to eat. How would we like to eat this ingredient. My cooks create more than I do now and in the last year we really started to focus on local products and purveyors. I'd say right now we get 80% of our produce locally and hopefully with Sweet Olive we will get that number to 100%.

I've become much more laid back recently. My biggest kitchen pet peeve is probably watching a cook turn a burner on high and try to cook something. The only time a burner should ever be on high in a kitchen is when you are trying to boil water. One of the most important aspects to cooking is controlling your heat and you can't do that on high. Also, I need a really clean kitchen. But all chefs are like that.

I love making bread. Making bread everyday for the restaurant can be monotonous, but there is nothing more rewarding than baking bread. What is funny is that at my mom's bakery, I never baked anything. Now I bake 60-70 loaves a day. Pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven is super rewarding. It is just flour, water, and yeast, but what comes out is so much more.

Hardest part of opening the restaurant was that neither Lillian nor I had any business background whatsoever. We had no idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I learned I was halfway decent at business things.

The French Laundry Cookbook- It is sort of the template of most cooks for the last 10 years or so, but I really love that book. Bread Baker's Apprentice. The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock's. And I really like the NOMA cookbook, because it is so different and revolutionary. His emphasis on foraging and cooking ingredients I've never heard of is so different, it is really cool.

These days my favorite kitchen tool is my Sharpie. But always the knife. I use an 8 inch Misono chef's knife for just about everything.

Had a cook on maybe his third day. Right before service on a busy Friday night there was a huge stock pot on a table by the dishwasher's station. The leg of the table gave out and the cook rushed over to save the stock. 15 gallons of near boiling hot stock went everywhere including all over him. That was a pretty gruesome thing to see.

The food at Sweet Olive is going to be updated versions of New Orleans and Southern food classics. We are going to take a similar approach there that we do at Coquette and have a good time with the food. I've been obsessed with collard greens lately. One idea has us cooking whole leaf collards sous vide, then treating it like a grape leaf and wrapping it around boudin. We are also going to do bar food for the bar, a really great Continental breakfast, and maybe a tiki bar themed rooftop bar. We've got 3-4 months to put together the menu; when we opened Coquette we did not have that luxury.

I get really nervous cooking for people, especially chefs. Cooks all have different approaches to foods, so I am always nervous when I serve a chef he is thinking, "This is not what I would have done." I'd probably just want to cook for friends and family mostly. I love when people come in and I can cook on the fly, just make new things with the ingredients we have in our kitchen. If I spend weeks on a new menu, it is invariably crap. But if I just throw something together it is always great. Desperation plays a critical role in this kitchen.

When not in my restaurant, I like to eat. I eat out a lot. When we first opened, we ate out whenever we could, in order to scope out the competition. But now we do it because we love to eat.

Most memorable meal was at Babbo. We had gone to New York to eat. One night we ate at Corton, Paul Liebrandt's restaurant. While the food was good, it was nothing special. You could tell that a lot of time had been put into each dish, but it was just lacking. Plus it was a very expensive meal. The next night we went to Babbo and did the pasta tasting for like $60. Everything was so simple, but so well done. The sommelier waited on us and halfway through switched pairings to grappa, there was rock music in the background, just a great meal.

Mike Gulotta of August, probably. He taught me how to make food taste good and how to run a kitchen.

Truffle oil, but thankfully that is going away anyway. I can't stand the stuff and will never use it here. That is disgusting stuff. And of course, I wish restaurants would get away from commodity meats and the like. I am not preachy about it, don't plaster farms all over the menu, but that is really important to me. As cooks we have a duty to our customers to give them healthy food- not just for their bodies but for the environment also.

Right now, I am really being influenced by Spanish and Vietnamese flavors and cooking. One of my cook's is from Miami and so he has a huge love of Spanish cooking. Another one of my cooks is absolutely obsessed with all things Vietnamese. Eventually I'd like to have a really casual spot that just serves awesome food without worrying about plating or dining rooms. I cook to make people happy and casual food does that better than anything else.

Usually the last thing I want to do when I get home is cook. Lillian is an excellent cook, so usually she has something ready. If not, I like to grill. The other day picked up some boudin stuffed quail from Butcher and threw those on the grill. If nothing to grill, Lillian hasn't cooked anything, and nothing in fridge, I just eat almonds.

La Boca is my favorite restaurant in the city. There is absolutely no pretension there. I love that they can serve me an appetizer that is just a piece of sausage and an entree that is just a piece of meat. Lillian is an occasional vegan, but even she loves La Boca. Adolfo thinks I am stalking him because I go to a lot of his restaurants and he is always there. Nine Roses, we go here pretty much every Sunday night in the winter. Horinoya is the only good sushi I've found in the city and their service is incredible. And Butcher, that place is an anomaly. Every time I go in there, it gets better and better. I love Butcher.

On a deserted island, I would need sparkling water. I go through 3 liters of the stuff a day. Something to dip ranch into, along with ranch dressing. Marconna almonds and crispy pig ear. We fry it up to order at the restaurant, and there is always a few bits for me to snack on. I figure I eat pig ear all night. Probably not healthy but hey it is good.

3 Roses Shy of a Dozen

Eating Vietnamese food is messy work. After a good feasting, the table is littered with plates, bowls with tiny lagoons of dipping sauce, sheets of lettuce, tufts of herbs, shards of crumbs, glasses, and napkins galore. Your shirt is likely covered in specks of sauce flung from a noodle as it wiggled its way toward your mouth. This is elbows on the table, slurping, beer drinking cuisine. And no one in town does it better than Nine Roses.

Everything at Nine Roses is first rate. Two words of caution though: (1) It is closed on Wednesdays, and (2) it does not have banh mi. If it is your first experience with Vietnamese order the bun. We would force you to get it with chargrilled pork and egg rolls, but you already knew that. The pork's dark, sweet and crusty outside hides an interior of juiciness and salt. If the perfect bite of food existed, we feel it would be comprised of noodles, nuoc mam, chargrilled pork, the crust of an eggroll, and a slice of cucumber.

The quail is another stand out dish. Four or five quail arrived, their skins bronzed like Pauly D from fragrant, exotic rubbed in spices and dry roasting. Next to them sit elastic pillows of smooth, steamed dough. You pry open the dough, stuff it with quail meat and crisp accoutrements, fold it over and bite. Soft dough, rich quail, fresh herbs; it's enough to make a Glee worthy chorus sing out in your mouth.

You would also do well to focus on the dishes which we call "roll it yourself." Tennis ball sized pork meatballs get wrapped inside sheets of romaine and dunked in fish sauce flecked with chili flake (above). It is as close to healthy as pork is ever gonna be. Or try ground shrimp wrapped around a shaft of sugar cane and then grilled to impart a smoky and sweet edge (below). To assemble, first dip rice paper in hot water to moisten. Toss on some mint, a few bean sprouts, and roll. (Come on, college wasn't that long ago, you can do this.) Then drag it through the salty, sweet and deep flavor of peanut sauce.

Of course there is the Number 9 on the menu, which is Number 1 in our hearts. Citrus marinated raw beef crown a nest of sliced onions and thin disks of lemon. You don't so much eat this dish as you inhale the aromas and feel the textures. If you love Vietnamese food, this is the payoff. The way they coax such big, intoxicating flavors out of seemingly simple ingredients. Onions, beef, lemon, and herbs - in America that becomes a hamburger with caramelized onions and lemonade. The result in Vietnam is a light, fragrant dish which may just encourage you to go for a run.

The menu lists other offbeat selections, such as tender morsels of goat swimming in a sea of yellow curry and slices of onion. Chinese brocoli is a heaping pile of leafy greens attached to thick, woodsy stems all sauteed in lip-smacking oyster sauce. These are dishes which only the adventurous diners usually order, but anyone willing to take a chance will likely enjoy.

Most of our shirts at home tell the tale of our love affair with Vietnamese cuisine. But the stains we love the most come from Nine Roses. Maybe that sounds weird, but we say it is strong indication of why Nine Roses is the best Vietnamese in the town.

The Rankings

Food - Eagle. Consistently the best. Nine Roses does the little things right which makes a best difference. The pork is sliced in thicker than normal chunks, which allows a nice crust to develop while preserving a tender interior. The veggies are always fresh enough to make noise when you bite into them.

Bar/Wine/Service - Birdie. You don't drink wine here. You drink beer, tea, or soda chanh. The latter is a teeth chattering excursion extolling lemonade's finer virtues. Service does a very good job of bridging the gap between the large menu and what you want to eat. Plus, if you have a question as to how to eat what you order, just ask. Then watch as nimble fingers make easy work.

Overall - Eagle. We sum up our endorsement of Nine Roses with a cinematic aside. In Field of Dreams, there is a wonderful scene in which Terrance Mann describes America's love affair with baseball thusly, "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come." (Spine tingling audio here).

Well, we have eaten Vietnamese all over the city, and the one constant has been Nine Roses. People will come. People should most definitely go.

2010 Challenge: "Bun" at Home or Why Vietnamese Food is Better Than 30 Minute Meals

Last week, Peter and I had lunch with P and R. At one point P asked us, "Why do you guys always write about Vietnamese?"

The question stopped us dead in our tracks. It was obvious from P's tone, that this young lass had never beheld the glories of chargrilled pork or slurped pho. We quickly decided against leaving the lunch and spent the next five minutes uttering non-nonsensical, onomatopoeic phrases like "It's crunchy, fresh, vegetabley things, beer food, juicy pork, just good."

We eat a lot. Most of it is not what you would call healthy, so as a detox we spoil ourselves with the freshness of Vietnamese flavors. For me, bun - the cold, noodle dish of veggies, chargrilled meats, and nuoc mam - from Nine Roses is what I crave. But a spring roll with pink shrimp, crisp mint, and bright basil also does in a pinch.Why not combine the two? It worked, but like most junkies on a detox, it just made me crave the real thing.

Vietnamese Shrimp and Fava Bean Salad

To start, go to the Crescent City Farmer's Market. Get some fava beans and shrimp. Find a friend. One of you needs to remove the favas from the pod, the other needs to devein the shrimp. Once the favas are removed, blanch them for about 2 minutes. Then toss directly into an ice bath. Once they cool, the bean should pop right out of the bitter, light green skin encapsulating it. This is labor intensive, but worth it.

Meanwhile, julienne a carrot and an onion. In a large bowl, combine a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar, a 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, and crushed bay leaf. Add to this the carrot and half of the onion, let this chill out. You are basically quickly pickling the veggies. (That last sentence has a host of loose definitions.)

Fry the remaining onion until crispy and brown but not burned. Set aside. Julienne a head of romaine, but save one or two leafs to serve as wraps. The dressing you want to be evocative of nuoc mam. Combine a few dashes of fish sauce (don't have it? use soy or Worcestershire) with salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. Whisk in your olive oil (3 tablespoons is the preferred ratio). Add in some torn mint.

Season shrimp with salt and pepper and grill for about two minutes per side. To assemble, toss romaine in dressing. Place saved leaf on plate and then pile on the lettuce. Drizzle some lemon over the fava beans and a sprinkle of olive oil, place next to lettuce. Top romaine with pickled veggies, crispy onions, shrimp and fava beans.

This is not a thirty minute meal by any stretch of the imagination. But then again the concept of restricting your cooking repertoire to thirty minute meals is a lot like letting a pretty girl know that you only intend to have sex with her for 2 minutes tops. But if you have nothing to do on a Saturday and you can't make it to the West Bank, this will do.

Hoa Hong

We recently had a cast of blog characters gathered together for lunch at Hoa Hong 9 Roses. Rene, Bloggle, Donnie Boy, and I ate our way through nearly every animal in the zodiac. But before the carnivorous feast began, we had our daily fill of vegetables from the Vietnamese crepe (banh xeo). The crepe looks deceptively like an omelette, but it's thinner, crisper, and has a slightly sweet flavor. It's filled with shrimp and bean sprouts, and then served with a tray of lettuce, sliced carrots, and mint. Add fresh veggies, dip in fish sauce, spice up with sriracha, and indulge.

In honor of the Dread Pirate, I tried the goat curry. The curry was flavorful but very thin, which made it less than optimal as a sauce for the steamed rice. The goat meat was cut into bite-sized morsels and served skin on, which may be off-putting to some but the texture is not completely foreign. Still, the meat was oh so love me tender.

Both Rene and Bloggle had the vermicelli bowl with chargrilled pork and eggrolls. In celebration of skipping the Chicago marathon, Bloggle ordered the large bowl - a decision which earned him the distinction of "Superman" in the eyes of our waitress. But in this case the Man of Steel's eyes were bigger than his stomach, and he threw in the towel before he could finish. How anyone could leave behind such deliciously grilled pork, I cannot understand.

'

Donnie Boy ate some sort of no carb, non-fat meal. Needless to say it was not worth writing about.

'

9 Roses - Birdie

Greetings from the Red Stick

As Rene said, I have been riding out Gustav up here in Baton Rouge.  While I am thrilled that NOLA was spared severe damage, our neighbors here to the northwest bore the brunt of the storm.  You can't walk or drive 50 feet without seeing an uprooted tree or a downed power line.  Though such damage is thought to be minimal relative to what New Orleans suffered from Katrina, the destruction here in BR should not be trivialized just because there were no levees breached.  Baton Rouge served as a place of refuge for many of us during and after Katrina, and we hope that the city's recovery is rapid and complete.

That being said, I could really use some good eats.  Chargrilled pork from Nine Roses, a Fat Kid Special, and a FEMA Roll (how appropriate) from Sushi Bros have all crossed my mind as cravings.  I read that Luke was open.  That would work too.

The Pope safely rode out the storm with his mobile wine cellar.  Throughout the past four days, I have received such text messages as "Strip Steak with J Pinot" and "PB&J with a 2001 Cakebread Cabernet."  Oh, and the best was: "I am almost out of Grand Marnier.  I may have to make a trip back to my house."  La Papa sure does know how to throw a hurricane party.

Disappointment Begets Joy

I exaggerate, but not often. However, after leaving Nine Roses on the West Bank, I could hardly wait to write the review. This food is damn good. Allow me to set the stage.

Peter invited me to lunch with he and the The Folk Singer. The Folk Singer is currently studying for the bar, so despite her best protestations to the contrary, she is not busy. We wanted Vietnamese Po-boys from Pho Tau Bay. However silly us, Pho Tau Bay is not open on Thursdays. We drove around the West Bank looking for Nine Roses. When we found it, the adventure began.

You know how in movies sometimes the soundtrack abruptly ends when the squares walk into the school dance. Well, a similar thing happened when we walked into Nine Roses. All the patrons (mostly Vietnamese, 90% Asian) turned and stared. First rule of dining out, whenever you walk into a spot and you are out of place only two things can happen. One of them is an amazing meal; that is what we got.

We perused the enormous menu. And seemed to settle on a few choices. Peter ordered Spring Rolls, Pork Meatballs, and the Bun Thit Nuong (char-grilled pork over vermicelli noodles). The Folk Singer ordered hot and sour seafood soup and Curry & Coconut Chicken.

Then the server turned to me. I audibled into the Number 9. "You been here before?" our server asked me.

"No."

"Well then you can't have that dish. You won't like it."

"Well what is it." My inner child now telling me, "If you dont get the number 9 we are burning this place down."

"Is a rar beef."

"Bring it. I'll eat it."

Rule number 17 in dining out, when the server doesn't think you are legit enough/could be a spy from the FDA/or an undercover investigative reporter from 6 On Your Side and refuses to let you order what you want, its got to be good.

The parade of accessories began pouring out of the kitchen: lettuce, Nuoc Mam Sauce, Peanut Sauce, Rice Paper. Then the spring rolls arrived. Through the paper-thin rice paper you could make out 3 large shrimp resting their plump heads on a bed of mint, vermicelli, and pork. An absolute explosion in your mouth. The mint took that roll over the edge, just a wonderful combination of flavors without being overwhelming.

The Folk Singer received a oversized bowl of soup chock full of U-12 shrimp, octopus, and a little crab. Ooohs and ahhs from her side of the table.

Then came my forbidden order. Tenderloin sliced so thin it made the rice paper look like cardboard. The beef was marinated in lemon juice and set atop thinly sliced onions, mint, and cilantro. The process goes like this. Dip the stiff rice paper in the steaming bowl of water, spoon the raw beef, onions, and grassy delight onto the moist wrapper, drop some Nuoc Mam sauce, roll and enjoy. The acidity of the dressing essentially "cooks" the beef. For lack of a more apt description this is steak ceviche. Don't worry the steak is sliced so thinly any bacteria are chopped in half. And I am no scientist but half a bacteria is harmless.

The taste is indescribable. Sour, salty, crunchy, tender and fresh flavorings dominate. You could eat millions of these Vietnamese Carpaccio Tacos. I stopped at 7. What I really loved is how fresh and clean this taste was without being bland.

Peter's pork meatballs arrived. 6 huge balls of ground pork, that were as light to eat as cotton candy and juicy as can be. Unfortunately, the rest of the food began arriving; we could have fed a platoon.

Peter's chargrilled pork came out. Crunchy exterior with a meltingly tender interior. A nice smoky flavor gave way to porky goodness. The cut of pork remains unknown ( Isuggest something from the belly or shank), but whatever cut it was, this was the essence of pork. Pork, thank God for that invention.

Folk Singer did not really share her curry. I guess she did not get the memo that when you eat with the Blackened Out Crew, the rule is bite, bite, pass. She is a rookie, we allow mistakes.

This meal blew away all our expectations. What began as disappointment became overhwleming joy. I can't claim to be the first food writer (for lack of a better term) to discuss the beauty of Vietnamese Cuisine, and I will not be the last, but this food is so incredibly different from anything you have experienced thus far. And Nine Roses does a hell of a job.

I suspect you will really enjoy your visit there. Just make sure to steer clear of anything that they let you order.

Birdie