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Restaurant Ratings

The ratings are based mostly on the degree to which the food excites us, and a little on environment, service, and other considerations. I rate restaurants relative to all other restaurants in the New Orleans area. Here's what the stars mean to me:

starstarstarstarstar
Among the best locally.

starstarstarstar
Excellent and ambitious.

starstarstar
Worth crossing town for.

starstar
Recommended.

*
Acceptable.

No star
Unacceptable.

Cost Ratings
Each dollar sign indicates a ten-dollar range, including a normal meal for the restaurant (dinner, if they serve other meals), not including drinks, or tips. So, for example. . .

1$--$5-15
2$--$15-25
3$--$25-35

. . . and so on, with no upper limit. While this scheme may suggest mathematical precision, know that perception of price varies from diner to diner as much as the star ratings do. So consider this an estimate.

All reviews are based entirely on meals I have personally taken at the restaurant and paid for from my own pocket. I don't take free review meals, nor am I reimbursed by anybody for my restaurant expenditures.

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August Moon

Chinese. Vietnamese.
Uptown: 3635 Prytania. 504-899-5129. Map.
Lunch Monday-Friday. Dinner Monday-Saturday.
Casual.
AE DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Restaurants in the neighborhood of the Touro Hospital complex have always enjoyed a healthy, regular, almost captive clientele. From the doctors to the orderlies, people working in hospitals can't go far to eat. This has produced a long line of just-okay and outright bad restaurants. August Moon keeps this tradition, particularly in its Chinese cooking, which is utterly ordinary. The day is saved by the Vietnamese food, which--being much simpler to prepare--is much better.

WHY IT'S GOOD
The Vietnamese-influenced stir-fries and noodle dishes are the best bets, better than the pho. The menu is geared to a great degree toward fast service and take-out dinners, of which August Moon cooks legions.

BACKSTORY
August Moon opened as a Chinese restaurant in 1994, taking over the building formerly occupied by a string of restaurants too unmemorable to detail. By the turn of the century, Vietnamese cooking had become so popular--especially among the younger clientele Uptown--that the menu began to emphasize that cuisine.

DINING ROOM
The restaurants underwent a welcome renovation a year or two ago, coming out of it more spacious, brighter and more pleasant. The bright colors for which Asian restaurants are known are here, but applied with taste. Large windows add more visual interest.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Fried vegetable rolls.
Fried Saigon rolls.
Shrimp toast.
Crab Rangoons ("ragus").
Steamed or fried dumplings with pork or shrimp.
Vietnamese spring rolls.
Stir-fried mussels.
Chinese hot and sour soup.
Vietnamese hot and sour soup.
Yat-ka-mein soup.
Pho (Vietnamese beef and noodle soup).
Singapore noodles.
"Bun" noodles (served cool, topped with grilled pork, beef, chicken, or shrimp)
Szechuan eggplant.
Vegetable curry.
Hunan chicken, beef, or pork.
Moo shu chicken, beef, or pork.
Chicken, shrimp or pork in Szechuan hot garlic sauce.
Chicken with cashews.
Lemongrass chicken or beef.
Combination egg foo yung.
Half duck with ginger or West Lake sauce.
Sweet and spicy shrimp.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Unless you like the very old style of local Chinese cooking, stay away from the Chinese dishes entirely, unless something seems irresistible to your hunger of the moment. If you want something spicy, be sure to emphasize this. Most dishes that should be spicy aren't, very.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The house fish is tilapia, which says something about the standards of food buying here.

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

This review was updated with new information on 4/13/2010.

A list of over 325 full, current reviews is here.