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You need a minute. Or 10, because the menu at Pho Quynh has nearly 200 items.

The restaurant’s name connotes the big round bowls of brothy noodle soups that typify Vietnamese cuisine. It opened after Hurricane Katrina a couple miles east of Cortana Mall, another in a cluster of Asian-owned markets, restaurants and shops on Florida Boulevard. It’s across the street from the stalwart grocery Vinh Phat, where you can buy everything from spring roll wrappers to fresh lychees in their maddeningly short season.

Pho Quynh is the latest in a small, yet important number of Vietnamese restaurants citywide, although down by one when Saigon closed. In recent years, Baton Rougeans have flocked to this earthy cuisine, embracing its fresh flavors, silky noodles, and pleasing clash of red pepper fire and herby sweetness.

Off the bat, Pho Quynh is welcoming and well-lit, comfortable and simple, outfitted in non-descript tans and casual, clean lines. The décor is nothing fancy, and the service is pleasant and efficient. A couple of subtle flat-screen TVs keep lone diners occupied until the food promptly arrives.

And when it does, let the slurping commence. Pho demands it. The soup arrived in a personal tureen layered with rice noodles, various cuts of meat, screaming hot (temperature-wise) broth, and a side pile of fresh herbs and bean sprouts for embellishing each bite. With chop sticks in one hand and an Asian soup spoon in the other, you begin the delicate task of pulling apart noodles from the fat pile at the bottom, stabilizing them in the broth-filled spoon, enhancing it with crunchy sprouts and slurping it down.

Clearly, pho is a must at a pho joint, and a respectable, well-rounded place to start is the pho tai, nam, gau, otherwise known as beef noodle soup with thin slices of well-cooked eye of the round, flank steak and “fat” brisket. If you’re feeling resolutely occidental, ask for the No. 24. It’s whispy and light, and tastes not so much beefy as it does slightly antiseptic. The healing, medicinal flavor is imparted by Thai basil. Beef pho is also available with other meats I found less compelling, like springy meatballs, lackluster soft tendon, and tripe, thin cilia-like strands of stomach lining that were low on taste and eternally chewy.

If you forego the pho, don’t forego soup altogether because one of the menu’s best items is No. 10, soup Thai, or Tom Yum soup. Maybe it’s blasphemous to order something Thai-inspired while soaking up the cuisine of Vietnam, but the stuff is unbelievably fragrant and jaw-teasing. It’s tangy with lemongrass and peppered with tender shrimp and chicken and crunchy bean sprouts. Plus, it’s got that great yin-yang of searing red chili oil and cool cilantro. And a $5 portion serves two.

Pho Quynh’s short list of starters are nice, like tender spring rolls with shrimp, grilled pork, or grilled beef, or a fried egg roll with savory ground pork and sweet carrots ($2.50-$3). Either of the muois is also solid and satisfying. Shrimp or squid are battered thick, fried and served with salty sautéed sweet onions and red peppers ($11 each).

Pho Quynh features daily specials, and among them we sampled the pleasing, rich pho ap chao, pan-fried noodle cakes with stir-fried vegetables and beef. A generous mound of broccoli, bamboo shoots, mushrooms and slices of beef in brown sauce is surrounded by triangular cakes of noodles bound with egg and pan-fried until tender crisp ($13).

The menu’s workhorse, and the item I routinely fall back while eating Vietnamese, is the vermicelli or bun. Like pho, bun involves a bowl of layered ingredients, this time crispy shredded lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and cilantro, tender rice vermicelli noodles (much lighter than semolina pasta), and a smattering of toppings like spicy beef, grilled pork or shrimp, slices of egg rolls, shrimp paste formed around sugar cane, and so on. Over the top you pour fish sauce, add pastes made from fiery peppers or fermented black beans, grab your chopsticks and get to work. I tried No. 101, grilled pork and egg roll, and found it solid and pleasing, although too short on toppings ($6).

A final word on the behemoth menu: While 200 items are dizzying, think of it in terms of major categories, and you’ve brought it down to a manageable 20-odd. One is pho, within which there are 15 different variations. Another category is grilled meats with rice, and still another is vermicelli bowls. There are stir fries with different lead ingredients, a few family size “hot pots,” several stir-fried noodle dishes (like Pad Thai) and plenty more.

Noodle on which group sounds good, and the rest will fall deliciously into place.

Pho Quynh