The Dr. and I both woke up with a hangover. We have been in New Orleans for less than two days and we’re already learning what it’s like to legally walk the streets with drinks in hand at all times of the day. Hangovers like this one call for a hot bowl of pho to calm our stomachs down and stop the pounding in our heads. Enter the town of Gretna, one of the largest enclaves of Vietnamese agricultural workers southeast of the city, on the other side of the Mississippi River.

It was the day of the Giants-Saints football game and none of the cabs we stopped were willing to cross the bridge for less than $40 round-trip. Eli Manning, who plays for the New York Giants, is a New Orleans hometown boy, so whatever the outcome was, the locals were meant to celebrate. (The Saints later destroyed the Giants.) It’s more difficult to get a return fare from small town Gretna so our grouchy cab driver tacked on a few extra dollars to our fare for disrupting his football time.

The cha gio here, or crispy spring rolls, were unlike what we usually eat in Vietnamese restaurants in New York City. They use a different kind of rice wrap that’s more thin and they bubbled up after frying. They weren’t cheap on the filling either. They were excellent wrapped in lettuce leaves and then dipped in nuoc mam, or the sweet and sour fish sauce that’s always on the table. My mouth is watering just thinking about them.

We ordered two kinds of pho to compare, one with a clear broth, and another–the Dr.’s preference–with a thick and stewy soup. Both hit the spot for sure because we nearly had to roll ourselves back to the city after eating. Of course, my eyes were hungrier than my stomach, so I ordered a plate of pork chops with rice that I ended up packing to go and eating in our hotel room later that night. The $40 ended up being worth the trip because we had the best Vietnamese food we’ve ever had outside of the island of Palawan, a Vietnamese refugee enclave in the Philippines.

Tan Dinh is at 1705 Lafayette Street right off the Belle Chasse Highway in Gretna, Louisiana. Call 504/361.8008 before you spend a hefty fare from New Orleans just to make sure they’re open.

Related post/s:
Tan Dinh Restaurant photos on Flickr

It was getting too late for lunch and we were famished. For our first lunch in New Orleans, we walked from the convention center, where the Dr. was the entire morning with other anesthesiologists, to St. Charles Avenue to drink decent Bloody Marys at Lüke Restaurant. And decent they were with the right amount of horseradish garnished with a string bean and a lovely okra. The drink was crisp and rich without you knowing that there’s too much alcohol in it for a mid-afternoon break.

We started with the corn and crab bisque because even though it was sunny in New Orleans, the wind was hitting us beneath the thin jackets we brought from New York. The soup tasted so much like crab and I could see from its brownish color that they’ve included some of the innards that you usually see when you take a crab apart. The fried oysters were light even though they were deep-fried in batter. A romaine salad with bacon and fresh slices of avocados brought the dish together. The Dr. opted for a heavier lunch of venison with two beautifully poached eggs. There’s nothing better than a runny yolk on top of a hot rich stew flavored with wild mushrooms on a brisk day.

We laughed at the crowd in Lüke because it’s our normal demographic when we travel. For some reason or another, we always end up eating with old moneyed white folks. We’d like to think we’re as well-heeled as they are, but most of the time, we just call ourselves old ninnies. But we can always pretend to be whomever we want to be when we’re on vacation, right?

Lüke is at 333 St. Charles Avenue next to the Hilton St. Charles Hotel in the Central Business District of New Orleans. We walked in for a late lunch, but they prefer that you call ahead at 504/378.2840.

Related post/s:
Lüke Restaurant photos on Flickr