We’ve eaten a fair bit of Vietnamese food in this past pandemic year but somehow we hadn’t gotten back to the restaurant that has over the last several years been perhaps our favourite slinger of pho: Trieu Chau on University Ave. in St. Paul. Well, we fixed that this past weekend. I’m not sure what incarnations their service model has gone through in the last year but they are currently open for dine-in and takeout. We are, however, not yet open for dining in and so it was takeout only for us. I called in our order just after 10 am (which is when they seem to open even though their menu etc. says 11 am) and picked it up just before 11.

It’s a small restaurant and I’m not sure how many tables they can have available during their current socially-distanced dining avatar. While I was picking up I noted one table occupied on one side of the dining room and another just getting done on the other side. It was, of course, very early on a Saturday—I suppose more people may have headed in later; I do hope that a lot of people ordered takeout.

What did we get? Nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, as with almost all Vietnamese restaurants in Minnesota there’s not a whole lot out of the ordinary on Trieu Chau’s menu. In fact, as at several other places, their Chinese offerings may outnumber their Vietnamese offerings which are restricted to the soups and salads—broadly speaking—genres. We got orders of pork eggrolls and springrolls (both quite good), a large bowl of pho (very good broth as usual), a broken rice plate with grilled pork chop (devoured by the boy who demanded it), an order of bun with grilled meatballs (devoured by the other boy), and an order of the mi Trieu Chau, pork and seafood broth with egg noodles, ground pork, a large variety of seafood and a quail egg in it. This last was the one departure as it was my dish in place of my usual bun bo hue. I’m glad to say I rather liked it. We also—as is our normal practice—got two order of banh mi to eat at a later meal. For some reason they no longer put pate in their banh mi (even though it’s listed as an ingredient on the menu). Well, despite this omission the banh mi were quite tasty anyway.

Trieu Chau does not have a website currently and it can be a struggle to find a current menu online. You’ll be glad to know therefore that I snagged a takeout menu and took large photos of it for the slideshow below. When you get to those pics in the slideshow click on the “View Full Size” link at the bottom-right and expand the image in the window that opens—it’ll be easily readable that way. Scroll down after to see how much all this cost and to find out what’s probably coming next.

With tax and 20% tip this came to just over $80. This was enough food for six people so just above $13/head. A very good deal. And one you should take advantage of.

Next up for us in pandemic takeout: the long-promised return to Homi. This weekend looks like it’s going to nice and warm (and not crazy windy as these past few days have been) and we’re planning to do a Homi meal on our deck with some friends. Hopefully, nothing will derail the plan this time around.