The menu at Banana Blossom (2112 Belle Chasse Hwy., Gretna, 504-392-7530) starts with fine-tuned Thai cooking but keeps expanding, adding flavors from BBQ shrimp to Nutella to the pantry of coconut milk, chiles and ginger.
These days, the restaurant itself is preparing to grow in a different way.
Jimmy Cho first opened Banana Blossom in 2009. Itโs a tiny cafe, effectively camouflaged within a large strip mall near Lapalco Boulevard. But now, Cho is developing a new home for Banana Blossom about two miles away, at 500 Ninth St., in downtown Gretna. Work is underway to transform an old corner store. The new restaurant is slated to open around October, at which point Cho will close the original location.
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty - Work is underway on a new location for the Thai restaurant Banana Blossom on Ninth Street in Gretna.
The move will give Banana Blossom more than twice the space and a more visible location. It will have a semi-open kitchen, a screened patio and a dedicated bar for drinks and dining (at Banana Blossom today, a fridge in the dining room with bottles stacked on top serves as the bar).
But while Banana Blossom is moving on up, its also staying in the West Bank community where it first sprouted.
Cho looked at other locations, and he considered moving the business to New Orleans. But with so many other restaurants now open in the city proper, and with the chance to buy and redevelop his own real estate in Gretna, he decided to stay put.
โThe business is all local, we donโt get any tourists here,โ said Cho. โI live nearby, I want us to cook for people here. I feel like here I will have more control of where the business goes.โ
Meanwhile, the original Banana Blossom is keeping on with business as usual, though these days that doesnโt always mean traditional Thai.
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty - Ramen with pork shoulder in Chinese five spice was a special recently at Banana Blossom, a Thai restaurant with an evolving menu.
The menu still starts with pad Thai, yellow curry and tom yum soup. From here though, Cho has gradually introduced different dishes, blending Thai styles with inspirations from his travels around the world.
For instance, a trip to Hawaii, and meals from Oahuโs fleet of โshrimp truckโ food vendors, led to the โHawaii 504,โ a bowl of coconut shrimp, boiled egg and pineapple over Thai barbecue sauce. After visiting Bali, where ramen is a daily staple, he added bowls of the springy noodle. A recent version had pork shoulder under a Chinese five spice rub and a slow-burning chile heat.
Traditional Thai roti bread โ chewy here, crinkly-crisp there โ now fields many different roles on the Banana Blossom menu. It becomes something like a Natchitoches meat pie, filled with Thai-style minced pork and crimped around the edges for a spicy, very oily turnover. For another dish, the bread is folded around spiced chicken for โThai tacos.โ
Banana Blossomโs version of BBQ shrimp tastes buttery, like , but uses no butter. Instead, it starts with vegetable oil and coconut milk and big, head-on shrimp.
โItโs all Thai ingredients,โ said Cho. โThatโs how we cook here, but we can bring in other influences, too. We can adapt.โ
Thai roti bread is wrapped around Nutella chocolate spread for a dessert at Banana Blossom in Gretna.ย
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty
That idea extends to dessert, where a trio of crรจme brulee brings vanilla, Thai tea and espresso custards to the table. And the roti returns too, piped with Nutella, the hazelnut/chocolate spread, for something that tastes like an East-meets-West dessert crepe.
Banana Blossom
2112 Belle Chasse Hwy., Gretna, 504-392-7530
New location planned for 500 Ninth St., Gretna, projected opening October 2017
Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat.
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