It’s been a while since my last restaurant report from St. Paul (on lunch at Homi); and it has been even longer since my last report on a meal at Kolap. As you may know, Kolap is the Twin Cities #2 Cambodian restaurant. It’s hard to deny Cheng Heng the top spot, both because of how long they’ve been around and because of their extensive menu. Kolap’s menu is much more edited. As at Cheng Heng, there’s a fair bit on it that’s not Cambodian per se—though, as always, a lot of food in the region crosses national borders. But it’s not hard to suss out the Cambodian specialties on the menu and the friendly staff will be only to happy to assist you in any case. The Cambodian dishes are done very well and are well worth a trip. That’s what we’d thought when we ate there in 2018 and we’d planned to come back soon. We didn’t manage it in 2019 and then the pandemic intervened and we lost sight of many a restaurant. Well, I’m glad to say we finally made it back this past weekend, accompanied by friends who we eat out with regularly. Here’s how it went.

Kolap is open Tuesday through Sunday. We ate lunch there this past Sunday and I can only hope that they have more business at other times. We were the only people in the restaurant for the 90 minutes or so that we were there. There was some takeout/delivery action happening and it’s possible that is the mainstay of their business during the day. Their location on Dale St., a few blocks away from the main University Ave. drag (the Twin Cities’ true Eat Street) probably keeps them off the mainstream radar. Or maybe we caught them on a slow day. Whatever the situation, I do hope to inspire a few more people to check them out soon. This for purely selfish reasons: we once again liked their food very much and it would be a bummer to not have it available.

What did we eat? We were a party of six: the four of us plus two more adults. We got a bunch of things to share. To start, two orders of their Beef Skewers (billed as shish kabobs on the menu). These are in the general satay family and come with a tangy papaya and carrot salad. The skewers and the salad were both very good and together they were even better. Next to arrive was the Prohok Ktees, the quintessential Cambodian dish of ground pork with curry paste, fermented fish etc.. We’d loved their rendition of this dish at our last meal and enjoyed it very much again, with both the veg and rice it comes with. We also very much enjoyed their Samchok or rice congee. Unlike in Cantonese congee, the rice grains are not cooked in this till they turn to mush and it’s closer to a rice soup (and the broth might be shared with the pho they also have on the menu).

At our previous meal we’d got their Lot Chha Pnom Penh and so at this meal we got the Lot Chha Hollywood. Presumably what makes it “Hollywood” is the presence of shrimp and imitation crab. It was very tasty with the fish sauce and ground peanuts sprinkled over. Also very good was the Loc Lac, which is cubes of beef tenderloin, stir-fried till caramelized with oyster sauce and served attractively with slices of tomato and quartered hard-boiled egg. Finally, we got a sour soup: not their signature Siem Reap Sour Soup or their Beef Sour Soup—both of which we’d tried and enjoyed at our previous meal—but the regular Fish Sour Soup. This is a very large portion and contains an unholy amount of fish (cut up with the bones). It’s also very tasty (though you have to be willing to deal with the bones).

And that was it. A lot of food for six people: we ate a lot and took some leftovers home. For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Service was very friendly and very on top of everything. Price? With a couple of sodas for the boys, tax and an appropriate tip, the total came to just below $120, or just below $20/head. That’s a very good deal even without the leftovers (it was really enough food for seven people, making the effective cost even lower). Do go if you’ve never been, or if you’ve not been recently.

Okay, what’s next on the food front? This week I will finally post the last of my reports from our California trip in June. I’m again not sure where my next Twin Cities report will be from. I do still hold out hope of finally making it to El Chivo Crazy. Let’s see how it goes.