There is no place quite like @moi.nola , a Vietnamese restaurant that foregoes pho and instead focuses on a range of dishes of the type normally only found around the family table or maybe a festival.

I’m enthralled by the pockets of tofu stuffed with pork meatballs and braised in tomato sauce.

The calamari salad starts with a base of chopped cabbage and adds the crisp sweetness of sliced green apple and wisps of fresh herbs around the cool, tender calamari strands, with a pop of fish sauce.

Get the fermented shrimp platter (bun dau mam tom) and you’re combining bits of roast pork with fried tofu and pieces of mashed shrimp paste torn from sugarcane skewers.

Now make little lettuce wraps with all of this, adding a strip of pressed rice noodle cake and a dose of the darkly pungent fermented shrimp sauce on the side.

It’s BYOB, and helpfully @faubourgwines is right next door to hook you up.

#wherenolaeats #igersneworleans #nolaeats #nolafoodie #nolafood Less