The best chicken wings in New Orleans hide across the river in a Vietnamese restaurant most tourists never reach. Tan Dinh sits in a Gretna strip mall at 1705 Lafayette Street, serving fish sauce wings that converted an entire city to Vietnamese-Creole fusion without calling it that.
Tan Dinh opened in the 1990s when Vietnamese refugees rebuilt their lives on the west bank after fleeing Saigon in 1975. The Vietnamese community in New Orleans numbers around 15,000 people, concentrated in Gretna and Versailles. They brought pho, banh mi, and fish sauce wings that New Orleans adopted as local food.
The fish sauce wings at Tan Dinh are fried twice. First fry cooks them through. Second fry at higher heat makes the skin shatter-crisp. Then they get tossed in caramelized fish sauce glaze with garlic, sugar, and chilies. The wings are sweet, salty, funky, and addictive. Order them mild or spicy. Order a full pound for $15 or half pound for $8. Order extra napkins because the glaze sticks to everything…