Nightingale 9

I would have given this 4 stars if it wasn’t for the rude waitress: it wasn’t even busy and she was washing some cocktail shakers and we asked for a drink and she was a total bitch. Then slammed down the menu in front of us. Then just ignored us the rest of the time. I think her name was Margaret; short blondish hair.
Anyway. The place is cute but nothing special. I had the fried egg rice bowl and it was just a big bowl of white rice with a fried egg over it. And a lettuce leaf. That’s it. Nothing else. The noodle soup looked good and my boyfriend enjoyed his baguette thing.

Pretty good… Could be better
Firstly, their menu is small but fresh. Their phở isn’t authentic — no beef tendons, tripe or meatballs. You only get 2 – 3 thin slices of meat. The broth lacks the flavor and depth of a traditional Vietnamese phở.
They deliver through trycaviar. I don’t recommend their delivery. Not all items are available to order and they shut down their delivery altogether when it’s busy.

Love the phở. And the fried broccoli. And the veggie fried rice.

Bit of a mixed experience at this place. I had the lunch special banh mi for $ 10 (with a beer!). The sandwich was decent, but nothing special. Even so, most of the menu was a touch expensive for Vietnamese, in my opinion (although perhaps not in NYC). My wife had phở for something like $ 15. That seems dear for noodle soup. She also had a ginger soda that she loved.
All in all I’d go back, especially for lunch.

I was hoping for a decent Vietnamese restaurant in the area. I wasn’t expecting the attention to detail and wonderful dishes they brought out.
Vietnamese with a New Orleans twist. The lunch Po-​Mi sandwiches are good — the dinner entrees are even better. Great place!

Overpriced and underwhelming. Food wise — the crispy broccoli was tasty, the fried squid was just basic calamari, nothing special and the phở was HUGE and just ok. Service felt a bit unorganized but was fine. A bit bland for me all around. Time to spice things up!

The food is always amazingly delicious, the staff is always friendly, efficient, and knowledgable about the food, the custom cocktails are unique and delicious and well balanced. My only complaints about this restaurant: it’s closed on Monday, and it’s too small/​has too few tables.
Also — PLEASE bring back the soupy coconut milk clam noodle dish!
One of my top 5 favorite restaurants in NYC for the past couple of years.

Our go-​to spot to eat while bar hopping with my girlfriend in the neighborhood. Shouts to the waitress we have every time for holding it down and making the best suggestions for our tipsy Thursday-​night selves.
I basically always get the waffles with pork belly and shrimp and have actually drank the maple chili syrup from the little syrup pitcher. We discovered that pretty much everything they serve is gluten free, including the waffles, spring rolls, noodles, and the fried calamari, being that they use rice and coconut flour for everything instead of wheat flour. I wept tears of joy when learning this! Also, the papaya salad has this amazing dried, sweet beef on it. And the pork shoulder noodles, my god. Man.
Authentic maybe, kinda expensive, but who cares. I’ve been drinking and need some salty things that won’t kill me slowly. Give me the whole menu.

Underwhelming. Average. And therefore overpriced.
When I go to a new place I go straight for the staples to see how they do them. So I had spring rolls appetizer and beef phở.
The spring rolls were tasty enough, served with a heap of greenery, but a very small portion for 6 bucks, really not worth it. Two little rolls. The phở was unremarkable: broth wasn’t fragrant or soothing like a good phở broth should be. That’s the most important thing for me; do I get happy every time I bring my face to the bowl?
Good phở broth should be soothing, calming, happy-​making. You should smell a little spice powder in there when you breathe it in. Anise-​y, it should have the same effect as getting into a warm bath. Or when a masseuse touches you with warm hands. It should transport a gringo like me to the first time he had the real thing on the streets of Vietnam. But it didn’t. I digress.
They started the meal by giving sparkling water for free, a nice touch that made me feel like a valued customer, but they ended the meal by rounding the bill up, because, what? They don’t like to make change? This broke the flow and made me feel a little bit flummoxed. Wait, what did they give me? Now I have to count it and see? And think? And do math? And if you don’t want to make change, then how about rounding down, in the customer’s favor…

2.5, really. The staff is very nice. The cocktails were pretty good.
However, the food is pretty whitewashed and overpriced. I enjoy a good fusion, but I ordered the Bun Cha Bowl which ended up being a bowl of vermicelli with miniature hamburger-​tasting patties tossed inside with a few sprigs of basil. Not really worth $ 14, sorry.

So we resisted going here for years because we go to Chinatown regularly for phở and the $ 15 price tag for phở really turned us off.
However…now older and lazier and more interested in good ingredients, we finally gave it a try. Had the collard green salad, spring rolls and phở bo. The salad was really fresh and tasty and the spring rolls were delicious though sadly tiny. $ 10 got us 4 small rolls.
We had more mixed feelings for the phở which was on the salty side, and the broth, though flavorful and rich, seemed to be missing something. Anise maybe? But the noodles were springy and the broth was clean tasting.
Overall we could really tell they use high quality ingredients, several notches higher than whatever goes in those $ 6 bowls of phở in chinatown. Will come back here, though maybe not that often as its fairly pricy for this type of food, especially with the small portions.

Wow a Vietnamese place in Carroll Gardens! WooHoo, I thought to myself. My GF and I are always on the hunt for good Viet food after our experience around the country. Unfortunately this isnt exactly what we were looking for.
The restaurant its very Brooklyn chic on the inside. Comfortable seating and a pretty looking bar. The servers and hostess were nice but I was a bit annoyed that I couldn’t be seated until my GF arrived.
We started with an order of the Green Mango salad (a favorite of ours normally). The Chefs take was a bit underwhelming but I do note the dried beef was excellent and instantly reminded me of Hanoi. For our main we ordered the Phở Bo (Beef) which was tasty and included the normal fare of lime, bean sprouts, basil, etc… I was certainly longing for Sriracha (no where to be found and substituted by some other hot sauce). The broth was good but nothing to gush over.
Overall experience was a good one but I think ill head to our hole in the wall legit places found elsewhere. This place was a bit pricey on the offerings as well.

I really did not have any major complaint about this place. However, I do have to say it is probably one of the most over priced Asian food I have ever eaten. I am all about paying little more for the value but I really did not experience the value of my dollars. Between my boyfriend and I, we got one spring roll and two entrees for brunch and we both got non-​alcoholic beverages for 60 dollars. I love Vietnamese and I am all about any Asian influenced restaurants with a twist. However, I just think I do not see any significant difference between my usual XL 6 $ Phở at Phở Bang and $ 15 Phở you get at Nightingale (TBH it was actually worse). It was very trendy and the ambiance was very nice (we ran into Jim Creedmore). But in the future, I think I will stick to 15 dollar bill vs 50 dollar bill for yummy vietnamese

I might make Nightingale 9 my new brunch place!
I’m not into your typical french toast/​omelet/​homefries brunch. It’s surprising how many places in Brooklyn do such conventional brunch menus. Not Nightingale 9! From fried spring rolls to phở to congee — I was delighted by all the out of the brunch-​box options! We ended up splitting the fried spring rolls to start and getting the lemongrass pork chop and bo luc lac. Everything was delicious (especially the spring rolls!) and I can’t wait to come back and try something different on the menu!

Came around 6:30 on a Saturday night and it was already pretty full but we didn’t have to wait for a table. By 7:15, the place was packed with people standing around waiting for tables. It’s annoying if you’re sitting near the entrance and people who are waiting are in your space while you’re trying to enjoy your meal.
They are smart to give people a whole milk bottle of water because when it gets busy, it is hard to get the servers.
Start with the baguette with phở butter. The butter is very unique and tasty. It would be nice if this was complimentary though.
The spring rolls were $ 6 for two. Not much flavor there, although it was nicely crispy. The wings were $ 11 for about 6 wings. They were tangy with a kick, like hot and sour soup on a wing.
I had the beef phở ($ 15). It definitely looked like someone already ate half, if you’re used to regular Viet restaurant portions. It only came with maybe three slices of beef and three pieces of brisket. Very scant in the meats. The noodles were good though. A nice bouncy texture with a good chew. The broth tasted really clear and didn’t have the complexity expected from phở.
Food is ok, three stars at best. But hate that there’s no real waiting area and I did face people bring right behind me, elbowing me while I was trying to eat.

Good, sometimes great, sometimes kind of, meh.
Went the other night for dinner after some months of anticipation. Place was pretty packed, but it’s also pretty small, so it’s doesn’t take much.
Ordered the cauliflower for an appetizer. VERY salty. Definitely my least favorite dish of the evening. For dinner, we shared the catfish noodles and the pork shoulder noodles. Pork shoulder noodles were good. I don’t know that I’d order them again, but they were good. Just nothing super unique. The catfish noodles, on the other hand, were fantastic. Great flavors, very different, absolutely what I had hoped they would be.
I want to go back, mainly because I want to try other things on the menu to see if there are other dishes as great as that catfish. And because I want to eat more of the catfish. But this place is definitely hit or miss.
With all dishes priced hovering close to or below $ 15, however, you can afford a miss here or there without too much regret.

I think these guys show some promise. The restaurant was really comfortable, service was friendly and competent. The food all seemed like it was on the path towards something tasty, but just slightly off the mark. I think they’re going to get it after they’ve been open a little longer, so I am going to come back and revise my review.
Jicama and wood ear mushroom spring rolls: crispy spring rolls with a too-​thick wrapper and some fairly flavorless fillings were offset by a delicious dipping sauce, fresh mint and lettuce leaves. Get thinner wrappers, and fill them with something a little more interesting, these would be great.
Tamarind chicken wings: tamarind is a really cool flavor here, but the sauce was a little thin. Wings were too small. If you get some bigger wings, and reduce the sauce, I think these would be winners.
Catfish with vermicelli: One of my fav vietnamese dishes. The fried catfish is spectacular, don’t change a thing there! However, it doesn’t really mix with the rest of the dish as the soggy noodles are swimming in some watery sauce. The crushed peanuts, sauce, dill, etc. should all cling to the noodles when you pick them up with a piece of catfish, instead it all slides off since the sauce is so watery.
Phở Bo: Beef and noodles were both perfect. Probably the best beef I’ve had in phở. Broth is a little too salty, and I didn’t detect any of the anise sweetness I normally find in phở broth.

Food:3.5−4 /​Service: 0 – 2
Despite living a block away, we wanted to give this place time to reach its stride before trying as afterall it is hard to justify paying a high price for gourmet Vietnamese when there are so many amazing authentic cheap options in the city (granted you can’t walk to those).
TAKEOUT
We started with a takeout order of Phở Gha and Phở Bo as that is the real litmus test for a Vietnamese place for us. The staff was friendly when we called in and picked up and while smaller portions than an authentic place, wasn’t shabby. The flavors were great (especially the beef) and the meats were trimmed well. The problem was that the noodles were completely overcooked and mushy. Yuck. We chalked this up to having done takeout so decided to eat in this past Friday.
DINING IN
When we arrived most of the tables were empty but the bartender said we would have to wait for a table where someone was paying their check. Confused why we would have to wait we asked if we could just sit at one of the 2 end tables that were free as we were hungry and he said no. Kind of in shock we waited 5 – 10 minutes looking at empty tables all around. Once the 3^rd table was set a waiter finally came to seat us so again asked if we could just sit at the end so not sandwiched against other couple. He said no as they need to save the 2 end tables in case a table of 4 came in. I explained that made no sense as there were an abundance of pairs of 2 tops left for 4s. Guy just glared at me and said no. So 15 minutes after arriving at a half empty restaurant we finally sat down. Literally 2 minutes later a couple walk in who are clearly pals with the bartender and a second later he is sitting them at the end table were told was reserved. Next thing our waiter is now chatting it up with this couple who he is clearly friends with as well and we are stuck waiting and waiting as they all chat away. Of course he then takes their order even before coming to check on us.
Typically at this point I would just walk out but my wife was willing to plough through so we could at least try the food.
Once the waiter and bartender were done chatting it up with there friends and made sure they had their drinks our waiter finally came back to us.
Speeding this story up, we ordered the Phở Bo again to see if the overcooked noodles were a fluke last time (it wasn’t…they were complete mush again), a beef stew special, and the Pork shoulder. The beef stew special was okay but meat had a lot of fat and really wasn’t much food (and it arrived not hot). Flavor was good though. The pork shoulder was a very good dish but a little flat. Needs either some heat or extra flavor to give it a kick.
If this was a brand new restaurant I would say they just need time to iron things out but they have already had that time.
Even with the mushy noodles I will probably be back when I don’t feel like having to go far but definitely not regularly… and especially not to dine in with the horrible attitude you get. There are just way too many other options in hood where they actually treat you like a human the minute you walk in.
The Slanted Door people from San Francisco are supposedly opening a gourmet Vietnamese spot in the Brooklyn Fish Camp spot so it will bill interesting how this place handles the competition.

Visited Nightingale 9 after reading about it on Grubstreet’s power rankings. In general, I really liked the space but found the food only above average. I think a few tweaks to the menu would go a long way.
We had to eat:
1) Watermelon (excellent)
2) Spring Rolls (really excellent and reminded me spring rolls I had in Vietnam)
3) Carolina Shrimp (good flavor but didn’t feel like a full dish and only had 4 small-​sized shrimp)
4) Shrimp fried rice (not very flavorful)
Drink:
Lychee Punch (didn’t have lychee in it as far as we could tell)
watermelon and vodka (very good)
I think the main problem with the meal came with the entrees that just didn’t pack the flavors of the appetizers. It is hard when the apps are so good and then the entrees disappoint. That said, the flavors are very good and I liked the décor, so I would call Nigthengale 9 above average and give it another shot when back in the neighborhood.

If you’re looking for delicious, affordable Vietnamese food in a casual, neighborhood environment, make sure to go to Nightingale 9 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The restaurant itself is modeled to the stripped-​down neighborhood restaurants of Hanoi, using reclaimed materials in the dinning room, and numbering their tables. They even have their own herb garden in the restaurant’s yard.
Everything on the menu looked great, and I started with some of my favorite veggies and ordered their Crispy Brussels Sprouts (lime, garlic, benne seeds). These were awesome. The brussels were indeed crispy on the outside, but tender in the middle and juicy, absorbing all of the savory and spicy flavors.
Then, I had the Seared Long Island Squid (caramelized sugar, rice cakes, celery, chili, peanuts). This dish was amazing, I loved it so much. At the bottom of the dish, you have a sweet squid ink, which I was encouraged to mix up all of the ingredients into the ink sauce. The dish as a whole is a little on the sweeter side, but totally delicious and balanced with the smokiness of the squid and the crunch of the raw peanuts and celery. So, maybe the most unique thing about this dish was the rice cakes. It was basically a tapioca, congealed rice protein type of texture, completely smooth, soft, but a little bit chewy, and cut into discs (that actually resembled sliced, small potatoes). I never had anything like it, and loved it.