From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January 25, 2008 Hoa Hong 9 Roses 2$ Gretna: 1100 Stephens (a half-block south of West Bank Expy.) 366-7665 Lunch and dinner Thurs.-Tues. (closed only Wed.) AE DC DS MC V Vietnamese. Every time I've dined at the Nine Roses, the server (always someone different) tried to talk me out of at least one of the dishes I was interested in trying. On my most recent visit, the waitress naysayed three selections before I finally insisted on at least one of them, no matter how strongly she felt that my non-Vietnamese palate would not receive them well. It's easy for an adventuresome diner to extend his horizons here. With the longest menu of any restaurant in town (I counted two hundred sixty-eight different dishes), Hoa Hong 9's kitchen has more than a few items you're not likely to find anywhere else. Indeed, they have some unique menu departments. Porridges, for example. (I've had a Vietnamese beef porridge before, and concluded that this may be a dish that one must be Vietnamese to even begin to understand.) With a menu that big, the temptation is to locate and order the familiar dishes. Even that is a challenge. Pho--the beef noodle soup that is the rage right now--is relegated to the back of the menu, in the "Traditional Breakfast and Lunch" department. Further complicating things is that a comprehensive selection of Chinese items is shuffled into the Vietnamese dishes. This is a relic of the early days of Vietnamese restaurants in New Orleans, when nobody knew Vietnamese food yet, but would accept Chinese food from someone who looked Asian. The Chinese food isn't bad, but it's like asking for a steak in a seafood house. So begin by ordering a drink or a beer. And some spring rolls (the cool, stretchy-wrapper kind, filled with shrimp and pork and noodles). Or the Vietnamese crepe, a.k.a. "happy pancake." That looks like a grossly overstuffed omelette, but it's a loose batter of rice flour cooked with shrimp, pork, herbs, sprouts, onions, and a few other things. Always good, and splittable at least three ways. That will buy enough time for you to give the menu a good reading. Unless you've already eaten here many times, you can safely skate past anything that engenders no taste image at all (pickled ham, for example). The server will try to talk you out of it, anyway. Also forget standard Chinese stuff like beef and broccoli. Then take a stand, and don't let the server sway you. Order the beef fondued in vinaigrette broth, or the version in butter. These are prepared at the table in pans set above a burner, and are not only delicious but fun. They have a few variations on this idea, combining other proteins and sauces. They come out with a basket of lettuce, mint, basil, and sprouts, with a light sauce with nuoc mam (fish sauce, the ancestor of Worcestershire) and pickled carrots. You get some rice paper and wrap it all up any way you like (don't worry about whether you're doing it right; there is no wrong way). This is delicious. Or fish. The clay pot fish is wonderful, in its light sauce with a good bit of black pepper. The whole fried or steamed fish are available a number of ways. The most surprising was the version with a tomato sauce. It didn't look like that, but it did have a tomatoey taste, sharpened with nuoc mam and the hot sauce from the squeeze bottle on the table. Seafood and tomato do not often work well together, but when they do, the taste is spectacular--and this manifestation is. The giant shrimp with "Mama Tu's special sauce" (I think it's more nuoc mam, with savory herbs) is equally robust. So are the salt-baked scallops (really more like stir-fried, very garlicky and peppery, and very good). Less interesting are the mussels, made with the big green-lipped mussels, which I find flavorless. The steamed duck--an unbelievable value at $13 for a half duck--is simple and elemental with a flavor and aroma I find in a lot of Vietnamese cooking, and which I can't quite identify. The version with the vinegar-based sauce with ginger and onions is like no other duck I've ever had. The only drawback is that it's bone-in all the way, and a little tough--a quality that comes from the steaming, I suspect. The soups are intended as main courses here, not appetizers. They are well made, in great variety. Some are served in a "hot pot," equipped with a flame in the center to keep it near the boiling point. Although the vogue now is for pho, I still have a preference for the sweet, spicy fish soups this cuisine creates. There's pineapple in there, and as odd as that may sound, it's delicious. As many times as I've been here, each visit to Nine Roses is like my first. I'm still finding dishes and flavors unlike any I've experience anywhere before. My most recent visit featured another dish the waitress warned me against. Described as medium-rare beef tenderloin (it's actually raw, she told me) with lemon juice, mint, onions, peanuts, and fresh herbs. The beef (quite raw) was pounded thin, like carpaccio, and set atop a pile of sliced raw onions. The lemon juice was a dominant but good flavor. I splashed some nuoc mam over it, and squirted some hot sauce here and there, and dug in. It was delicious. The restaurant is one large room, renovated and furnished beautifully some years ago, but looking a little worn now. One of the several fish tanks (for decoration, not fresh food storage) rumbles loudly enough to distract. Service is very efficient and pleasant, but that suspicion that you might go astray is always there. They mean well; they have a lot of experience with people who are unpleasantly surprised by a dish they didn't understand. Two things not to do here. Don't come on Wednesday, which has always been Nine Roses's unconventional day off. And don't come Tuesday night, when the staff is getting ready for Wednesday. That done, Nine Roses is always a delicious adventure. This was a restaurant in the Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.