From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published April 25, 2007 Doson's Noodle House 2$ Mid-City: 135 N. Carrollton Ave. 309-7283 Lunch and dinner Thurs.-Tues. (Closed Wed.) AE, DS, MC, V. Vietnamese. Chinese. Doson's Noodle House made a counterintuitive move after the storm. It left its original location on unflooded Oak Street off Carrollton, landing in a building half as big that took between four and five feet of long-standing flood water. Doson's new space has an advantage over the old, though. It's in the middle of the blossoming restaurant neighborhood near Carrollton and Canal. Eight cafes in a wide range of cuisines make that two-block radius one of the most deliciously attractive in town. Doson's bills itself as Vietnamese, but it didn't start that way. Originally called "Chinese's Chinese Restaurant" on Oak, it had a menu to match the name, plus a few Vietnamese specialties. Over the years, the balance shifted. In the new place, all dish names are Vietnamese now, even though a lot of Chinese dishes remain. And it seems to me that even the most traditional Vietnamese dishes have a Chinese influence here. Bun bo, for example, is typically a bed of cool noodles topped with grilled beef, cilantro, green onions, and very little in the way of a sauce. You add your own splashes of condiments to juice it up at the table. Here, the beef appears to be stir-fried, and the noodles get wet with the tasty, garlic-tinged sauce that coats the beef. Good, mind you, but different from what I've seen elsewhere. Start with the Vietnamese spring rolls, stuffed with noodles and shrimp, with spicy peanut sauce. Everything about them is right: temperature, moistness of the wrapper, size of the shrimp. Irresistible. The only possible problem with them is that eating two will satisfy a large part of your appetite. The summer roll is also tasty, fried with roast pork and vegetables inside. Chinese-style dumplings, fried or steamed, also begin a meal very well. Doson's offers pho in the standard chicken and beef versions. The idea of a large bowl of steaming broth with noodles and meat seems less than perfect when the temperature is in the nineties. However, if you spice the stuff up with your admixtures of greens, cilantro, crushed red pepper flakes, and hot sauce (there is no wrong way to assemble or eat pho), it really is a very good summer meal, because you can eat a great deal of it and still feel as if you'd eaten lightly. Besides, the air conditioning in here is frigid. The other offerings are fewer than they seem. Aside from what I already told you are pan-fried noodle dishes with several meats and seafoods and a list of Chinese basics (General's chicken, orange beef, even sweet and sour dishes). And a surprise: the delicious and astoundingly inexpensive roast duck ($25 buys you a whole duck). Bottom of the page: "Special request on dishes, condiments, or recipes instructed by our guests are delightfully welcome." This was a restaurant in the 2007 Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.