Short Order Reviews

Peter - Pho Tau Bay.  It had been quite a long time since I had dined at what was my first exposure to Vietnamese cuisine, but on this return visit the food did not live up to my memories. Because it was a cold and rainy Friday after Thanksgiving, I ordered a bowl of bo kho, the hearty stew of beef and carrots.  The gravy was thin and not nearly as flavorful as Tan Dinh's, and the temperature was luke warm.  On the bright side though, the beef was very tender and the carrots cooked to perfection.  Banh mi was skimpy on the chargrilled pork, but the flavor was spot on. In fact, I would say that portion sizes in general have been reduced, but at these prices it's tough to complain.  Pho Tau Bay - Par, sometimes the food is never as good as you remembered.  113 Westbank Expressway.

Rene - Brooklyn Pizza. Crust was structurally perfect; thin, crispy but not waifish. However, there was too much uncooked flour on the bottom of crust, which created a choking sensation as I did the "whooo whoooo this pizza is hot, must breath in rapid gasps of air" dance. (That dance is a hallmark of any good pizza.) Next the sauce - good, zippy and played the role of a background singer. Toppings - Lindsay went with a small vegetarian thing and I chose pepperoni and olives. Both seemed bland, but the cheese had that toothy, yet stringy quality. Best part of the meal was the Italian salad with mozzarella, a nice light vinaigrette, salami and black olives. Brooklyn Pizza - Par, but want another crack at it. 4301 Veterans Blvd.

Peter - Babylon Cafe.  First, you have to give major props to Babylon for baking their own bread.  Thick with a buttery crust, it feels strange at first to be eating hummus with the house bread instead of pita, but you quickly grow accustom to it.  All of the dips - hummus, baba ganoush, and lebna - are pureed smooth, almost whipped. The $10.99 combination salad is mountanious with crisp slices of gyro meat and chicken shawarma that tends to be dry when it is cut too thin, but nice and juicy when it's thicker.  A sleeper on the menu is the shrimp sauteed in a spicy tomato-based sauce with squash, zucchini, and peppers.  Everything is cheap, cheap, cheap, even with the fancy new laminated menus. Babylon Cafe - Birdie.  7724 Maple Street.

Rene - Jung's Golden Dragon. Chinese food has admittedly taken a backseat to other Asian cuisines in our culinary adventures. What more is there to say about General Tso's and fried rice. You know what it tastes like. Granted, this is not "real" Chinese food, but there is also no such thing as Italian food either. Enter Jung's Golden Dragon, which recently opened on Magazine St. in the same block as La Divina and Sucre. (Insert Great Wall of China joke here.) The draw to Jung's - previously it was located in Metairie - was always the "Yellow Menu" which features more authentic Chinese dishes than you may be used to finding. We started with the waiter's recommendation of Glass Shrimp Dumplings. What came forth was a beautiful and intricate bundle of shrimp encased in a cellophane clear wrapper. A fiery chili oil and ginger flavored soy sauce were all the accompaniments these little bundles of joy needed. 

Next, came an order of pan fried pork dumplings, which are easily the best dumplings in the city. Crunchy but bursting forth with the unctuousness of pork. After I devoured three of them, Lindsay balanced one more on the end of her chopsticks before saying, "I can see you like those, you can have the rest."

That is love.

For Lindsay, eggplant Szechuan style, which came as a big pile of stir fried, crisp on the outside, molten on inside strips of eggplant. The eggplant was coated in a fiery brown sauce. Nothing gloppy or sweet here, just pure flavors and exquisite technique. I kept things in the same line of thinking but went with shredded pork in lieu of a vegetable. Both our dishes came extra spicy as required and that provided all the fortification against what was a cold day. We got take out a few days later, which was equally as good. Can you tell I really like this place? Jung's - Birdie, another few visits, could be Eagle for Chinese Restaurant in New Orleans.

Bo Kho: The Other Vietnamese Soup

Happy Tuesday in New Orleans. If you didn't think that the Saints' #1 seed in the playoffs was a sign of hell freezing over, then let me introduce today's weather forecast:

High: 45°
Low: 28°

But there's good news:

1. It's always 68° in the Dome.
2. A steaming bowl of bo kho awaits you at Pho Tau Bay.

The menu description of this surprisingly familiar soup reads: "Vietnamese style spicy beef stew." That is no lie. The huge cubes of chuck roast and tall chunks of softened carrot are identical impostors of the staples in my Mom's beef stew. The broth though is like nothing other. The most offbeat ingredient is annatto, which gives the broth a reddish hue and also adds a bit of heat. After the first spoonful, I felt like a heroin addict who just couldn't get enough. The soup comes with your choice of vermicelli, glass noodles, or a loaf of warm banh mi for dipping.

If that doesn't uncurl your toes and defrost your ears, then you may as well hibernate till Mardi Gras because we can't help you. I may never slurp another spoonful of pho again. The price for this culinary heater: $7.

Which leaves you just enough money leftover for a char-grilled pork banh mi. Make someone else pay the bridge toll.

'

Pho Tau Bay - Birdie

Top 10 New Orleans Sandwiches

Nothing like starting the week off with a little controversy.

1. Roast Beef Po-Boy - Parkway Bakery: Words cannot describe the magic of Parkway's roast beef. The beef and gravy somehow become one with each other to make for a spectacular sandwich. The only possible way to improve on this po-boy would be to add fried shrimp .... Oh, right. I believe they call that the Surf & Turf, and it's now a permanent fixture on the menu. Then again, why mess with perfection?
2. Muffuletta - Nor Joe's: Sure, Central Grocery may have started it all, but who wants to wait in line and deal with surly service? At Nor-Joe's you only have to tolerate surly service. This sandwich is not for anyone with an aversion to the finer things in life. Things like cheese, Italian deli meats, briney olives, and bread. Its about time someone around town made a Muffuletta Charcuterie Board. In fact, I just did.
3. Roast Duck Po-Boy - Crabby Jack's: This thing is amazing, if only for the fact that you can't get it anywhere else. Succulent roasted duck in a brown au jus - it also wins the "high class" award.
4. Mozzarella - St. James Cheese Company/Fernando - Stein's Deli: So similar, yet so different? Both start with foccacia, pesto, and fresh mozzarella. At St. James they use salami, while at Stein's they layer on the prosciutto. The St. James Girl (surprisingly) gives the edge to the Mozzarella because the cheese is slightly melted.
5. Banh Mi - Pho Tau Bay: The bread might be the best specimen of classic New Orleans style french bread in the city. The fillings are straight from Vietnam. My favorite is the chef's special liver sausage and rolled ham, but you can't go wrong with the char grilled pork. By the way, the sandwiches are small (and cheap) enough so that you can order both.
6. Oyster Loaf - Casamento's: Oysters - it's what they do, which is why Casamento's is closed during those dreaded summer months when oysters are not at their peak. Piled high on toasted and buttered "pan bread" with a few pickles and a couple of dashes of hot sauce. You can't get much better than that.
7. Meatball Parmesan Po-Boy - Mahony's: The fresh mozzarella alone catapults this sandwich to the Top 10, but the handmade meatballs and red gravy are integral ingredients of the final product. The anise flavor in the meatballs provides a sweet overture to the final product.
8. #4 - Bud's Broiler: Onions? Yes. Double Meat? Yes. Chili or Sauce? Yes. (Wait, I said "or" - I have always been a sauce man myself, but I don't judge the chili lovers out there.) And if that wasn't enough, you can get this sandwich late at night.
9. Fat Kid Special - Liuzza's: Have you still not tried this yet? Panneed chicken breast topped with roast beef and gravy. How can that NOT be good? And if you wanted to be really fat, may we suggest putting fried pickles on top of all that. Dear God, my keyboard just went into cardiac arrest. Someone get me a bushwacker, STAT!
10. Italian Special - R&O's: Slices of Italian sausage and meatball, covered in red gravy, and topped with mozzarella. The seedy Italian style bread is unconventional for a po-boy, but it works. Plus, ordering a po-boy called the Italian Special makes it seem like you just put a hit out on that jerk from third grade.

Coming Tomorrow - the sandwiches we once loved, but now they are gone.

For Lunch Today...

I'm craving Vietnamese and that only means one thing: get out your $1 bills, we are headed to the Westbank. I can't wait to go to Nine Roses and get the pork meatballs and char-grilled pork and the infamous #9.... Wait.... Why are the no cars in the Nine Roses parking lot?

F*ck. Today is Wednesday. Nine Roses is closed on Wednesday. M*ther f*cker.

But there is always the old reliable Pho Tau Bay. Had the Mid City location reopened after Katrina, I would be eating Pho Tau Bay a lot more often than I do now. Pre-K, I would make weekly trips for those delectable banh mi and spring rolls. The banh mi - commonly known as "Vietnamese style po-boys" - start with a magnificent specimen of french bread, which is not surprising considering that Vietnamese bakers were taught by their former colonial rulers from France. (Go back to your 8th grade history course: Vietnam used to be French Indochina.) These crusty rolls are then filled with your choice of a wondrous array of meats: slices of char-grilled pork, stir-fried chicken, homemade rolled ham, or the special chicken liver sausage. Throw on some julienne vegetables, add some hot peppers, and then slather the bread with homemade mayo. Damn, that's a good sandwich.

Oh, did I mention that most of the banh mi cost under $5? At that price, you can afford two. Some might call that "gluttonous." At Blackened Out, we call that "fiscal responsibility."