Thursday, January 20, 2011. Clarification On Vietnamese Beef Broth. Sandwich Barrage. Mary Ann has a bad toothache. She has a fractured wisdom tooth and is hell-bent on saving it, even though her dentist says it would probably make more sense to extract it. As one whose teeth are severely compromised, I have no standing to argue with her. But her blinding pain this afternoon makes me ache with her.
About every six months, the cranks from the minor food messageboards around town decide it's time to make an attack on mine. They're coming after me for allegedly misunderstanding Vietnamese food, or even hating it. This is on the heels of a three-star rating of Pho Nola in this space last week. They jump on my assertion that most of the pho shops have a) interchangeable menus and 2) an overwhelming dominance of pho and dishes that are variations on pho. For example:
Bun = Pho - broth
However, the brouhaha really resulted from my failure to see a page of the menu at Pho Nola. The back side (or the second page) had another dozen entrees that got by me. These are mostly in the Com Dia department. Com dia can be very generally described this way:
Com dia = Pho - broth - noodles + rice
or
Com dia = Bun - noodles + rice
The same grilled meats that work their way onto bun dishes can be had as com dia. But a half-dozen or so are stir-fried dishes, which really are different.
That leaves, out of some sixty dishes on the menu, three salads, five banh mi sandwiches, and seven appetizers. Everything else is essentially a rearrangement of pho.
None of this implies that the food isn't good. It is, or I wouldn't give it three- and four-star ratings. My point is that the current vogue for Vietnamese food among young diners (and older diners who are just beginning to learn about food) brings them in most cases to restaurants with less range than the typical New Orleans-style neighborhood café. And if you want to make somebody mad (and I don't) tell them the style they're following is less appealing than they think it is. The main draw, I think, is that Vietnamese restaurants put out a ton of food for an almost laughably low price.
There are outstanding exceptions to all of this, of course. Four-star Nine Roses, four-star Café Minh, and three star Kim Son have vast menus with truly fascinating arrays of Vietnamese food. Ba Mien, Dong Phuong, and Thanh Thanh are others. Some pho shops are great, notably Kim Anh in Harahan. But I never understood what people rave about at places like Pho Tau Bay. They're good enough, but. . . it's beef chunks, broth and noodles.
When I arrived at the radio station, people who rarely say a word were thanking me. Giorlando's--the good neighborhood restaurant on Bonnabel at Veterans--had come by with platters of muffulettas and poor boys variously stuffed with roast beef, fried shrimp, and meatballs with red sauce. Everywhere I went I saw these platters, including in my studio. Tina, who always knows what's going on, said that Giorlando's was aiming its barrage at me. Well, they needn't have. Their sandwiches have always been excellent, and their expansion in recent years into a full-menu place has extended the range of their good, inexpensive cookery.
Between the breakfast I had with Mary Ann (before her teeth started hurting) at Mattina Bella and these sandwiches, that did my appetite in for the day. I went right home after the show to comfort my suffering sweetheart.
Pho Nola. Metairie: 3320 Transcontinental. 504-941-7690.
Giorlando's. Metairie: 741 Bonnabel. 504-835-8593.
