Here is my penultimate report from our week in Seoul in July. One of the first meals we’d eaten on the trip featured barbecue. That was at Hwapo Sikdang near Namdaemun Market, and that meal was centered on pork. The boys had asked to eat a beef barbecue meal as well and that is what we did at Iksundong Mokjang on our penultimate night in Seoul. We were going to be in Jongno-gu in the early evening and looking around for a well-reviewed bbq restaurant, I happened on Ikseondong Mokjang (or Iksundong Farm in their English signage). All signs pointed to a good meal and so it turned out to be. Here is a quick look. Continue reading
Category Archives: *Food
L’Industrie (New York, October 2025)
I have two meal reports to go from our week in Seoul in July and another two to go from our two weeks in Delhi after that. And I still haven’t started on the meals eaten during our brief stay in Kyoto between our time in Seoul and our time in Tokyo in June. It makes sense therefore that today I have for you a report from a weekend trip the missus and I took to New York/New Jersey in October. Our fall breaks lined up again this year and we took the opportunity to abandon our children and go enjoy ourselves by ourselves. This involved a fair bit of eating out and my first report is of a casual lunch eaten just a few hours after our arrival, at the West Village location of L’industrie. This was one of a few places recommended by my friends on Mouthfuls when I asked for suggestions for pizza by the slice within walking distance of the Whitney Museum. As it happens, we didn’t actually end up going to the Whitney that afternoon (we ended up at the Brooklyn Museum instead) but we did eat pizza at L’industrie. Continue reading
Vinai 2 (Minneapolis)
Over the last year, a few people have written in to the blog to ask why I did not include Vinai in the first edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation last year. Well, the answer is very simple: at the time I posted that list, I had not yet eaten at Vinai. We ate there for the first time at the end of October last year. And we really liked that meal. We’d expected to go back in just a few months but it didn’t end up happening; partly because of travel and other constraints, but also partly because their menu didn’t change much for those first few months after our first meal. After we got back from our summer travels I eventually got around to making a reservation for early October to celebrate the missus’ birthday but we ended up having to give those seats up just a few days prior. Luckily, I managed to snag a table for four for just about a month later and so this past weekend we descended on them again for dinner with our boys in tow. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Tacos El Kevin (Minneapolis)
We really need a historical survey of the Twin Cities metro’s casual Mexican restaurants. As I never tire of telling people who don’t live in Minnesota, there is a large and growing Mexican (and more broadly Hispanic) population here and a large and growing Mexican food scene to match. This is, of course, true almost everywhere in the US now, but casual Mexican is probably the most dependable category of food in the Twin Cities metro now. No matter where you go you are probably not more than a 5-10 minute drive from some excellent tacos, quesadillas and more. Someone more steeped in the scene than me should map all these places (to the extent it would be possible to map them all) and annotate them briefly with years of founding, names of proprietors and chefs and so on. I am not equipped to do that for you; but I can tell you what we thought of our lunch this past Sunday at an excellent place to grab tacos and more in South Minneapolis: Tacos El Kevin. Continue reading
Tim Ho Wan, Yongsan-gu (Seoul, July 2025)
Just a few more reports to go from our trip to Seoul in July. We made a few returns on this trip: to Gwangjang Market, to Gwanghwamun Gukbap, and to Oreno Ramen (the first visit for me, the second time for the missus and the boys). This report is of a lunch that was also a return of a kind. One of our very last meals in the city in March 2024 had been an excellent dim sum lunch at the Samseong location of Tim Ho Wan, the famous Hong Kong-based dim sum chain. Now, it’s not like eating Chinese food would normally be a high priority in Seoul but when you live in a dim sum desert like Minnesota, you have to take every opportunity to eat high quality dim sum that you get. As it happens, we thought that lunch was even better than at the better dim sum places in the San Gabriel Valley outside Los Angeles. And so it was a given that we would return on this trip as well. And we did—but not to the location we’d eaten at in 2024. Continue reading
Oreno Ramen, Insadong (Seoul, July 2025)
My last meal report from our brief trip to Seoul in July was of dinner at a place we’d eaten at on our previous, longer visit in February/March of 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. This report too features a return, but not to a place I had eaten at in 2024. Towards the end of that trip, after an afternoon’s wandering in one part of Seoul or the other, I had abandoned the family and headed off to Noryangjin Market to take a few of my students whose birthdays had fallen during our Seoul sojourn out to dinner at a seafood restaurant there. The missus and the boys meanwhile, accidentally emerged from Entrance 1 of the Anguk subway station near where we were staying in Insadong, turned into an alley in search of dinner and randomly walked past and then into a ramen restaurant. There they ate what they—particularly our younger boy—described to me as the best ramen they’d ever had. However, they couldn’t remember the name of the place—and since the last days of the program we were on were incredibly hectic, I never chased it down. But when we made our plan to return to Seoul this summer, the younger boy had it high on his wishlist; partly because he wanted me to try it as well, but mostly because he wanted to go back in his own right. So, we took Line 2 to Anguk and emerged from Entrance 1 and without too much trouble found the place again: Oreno Ramen. We were all curious to see what we would make of it after eating ramen in Tokyo just a few days previous. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Soul Lao (St. Paul, MN)
Soul Lao started out as a food truck some six or seven years ago. About two years ago they finally opened a brick and mortar location (on W 7th in St. Paul). They flashed upon my radar at the time but then I lost sight of them till long-time blog reader and commenter (and backchannel intel-provider), Jim Grinsfelder wrote me a note a few weeks ago to recommend them. Accordingly, we sallied forth two weeks ago, Saturday to finally check them out. We arrived shortly after opening time to discover that…they were randomly closed that day. We were disappointed but the day was not lost—we drove 10 minutes to the other side of W. 7th and had an excellent lunch at Hot Grainz. And this past Saturday we finally made it into Soul Lao. Was it worth the wait? Read on to find out. Continue reading
Taqueria La Hacienda (Minneapolis)
We didn’t eat out in the Twin Cities this past weekend because we weren’t in the Twin Cities this past weekend. If you pay attention to my posts on Instagram you’ll know that we were in New York and New Jersey for a few days. We ate out more than a couple of times on that trip and reports on those meals will start showing up on the blog once I get done with my remaining reports from our summer’s travels in Japan, South Korea and India. Today, however, I do have a Twin Cities report for you, as per usual. That’s because I had a report in my back pocket from August and September. We had lunch together as a family at La Hacienda back in August between errands in Minneapolis; and then a few weeks later I went back by myself on the way back from an outing to get some knives sharpened (at Eversharp Knives). Here is a quick look at both meals together. Continue reading
Hot Grainz IV (St. Paul, MN)
We left home on Saturday with the intention of meeting friends for lunch at a new(ish) Lao restaurant in St. Paul. Alas, we arrived to find they were randomly closed that day. To salvage the situation we headed to Hot Grainz, a mere 10 minutes drive away, down the other end of W. 7th St. We arrived to find some sort of art extravaganza in progress in the larger Schmidt’s complex. This meant we had to park quite a bit further away in the complex than we had on our first visit to their new location; but we did find parking easily enough. As we walked up to the restaurant, our hearts sank: there was yellow construction tape across the windows! Were they shut too? Thankfully, no: it turned out to be part of their Halloween decorations. Having been properly frightened we needed some good, hot food to restore us. And so it came to pass. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Gwanghwamun Gukbap II (Seoul, July 2025)
As I head into the home stretch with my meal reports from our week in Seoul in July, here is a very quick look at our last dinner in the city. For this meal we went back to a restaurant we ate at in February 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. The restaurant is located off Gwanghwamun Square and is known for its gukbap (clear broth with rice). In 2024 we had gone there specifically to eat the gukbap, and we did eat it. But we didn’t go back this on account of the gukbap. In fact, we didn’t even order it at this meal. No, we went back for two other dishes: another that we had eaten and loved at our previous meal and one that we had very much regretted not ordering at that meal when we saw it going out to tables all around us. Were there any regrets at this meal? Read on to find out. Continue reading
Apgujeong Miyeokguk (Seoul, July 2025)
The Seoul reports roll on. Apgujeong is the name of a neighbourhood; miyeokguk (or mieyok guk) refers to seaweed soup. Apgujeong Miyeokguk is the name of a restaurant in Apgujeong that specializes in Miyeokguk. We only went to Apgujeong, a part of the tony Gangnam district, once during our longer stay in Seoul in 2024—it’s where we went to watch the second Dune movie—and didn’t eat there. But we had a post-lunch meeting there in the afternoon on the day after our arrival in July and it seemed easiest to grab a bite somehere near the meeting. We’d not actually planned to eat at Apgujeong Miyeokguk. We were looking for some fried chicken place or the other but it didn’t seem to be where the map had told us it would be. Walking around, we passed Apgujeong Miyeokguk. It looked busy and it looked good and so we went in. And it was indeed good. Here is a quick look at our meal. Continue reading
Legendary Spice 4 (Minneapolis)
About 10 minutes into lunch at Legendary Spice this past weekend, the missus turned to the rest of us and said, you know, this might actually be the best Sichuan restaurant in the Twin Cities. We were dining with friends who are core members of our Grand Szechuan crew and none of us could quite muster up a rebuttal. The truth is both restaurants are very good indeed. But we eat at Grand Szechuan very often and have developed a deep familiarity with their menu. This familiarity, tended over more than a decade, has bred love, not contempt; but it is true that Legendary Spice’s somewhat different repertoire of Sichuan dishes sometimes feels fresher by contrast. This was certainly the case on Sunday when not one dish was less than excellent. Here are the details. Continue reading
Manbae Arirang (Seoul, July 2025)
Back to Seoul. My previous report from our visit to the city in July covered a dinner centered on grilled pork. Today I have for you a lunch centered on pork, but this time it’s not grilled. We were at a branch of Manbae Arirang, a bossam specialist. Manbae Arirang has been around since the late 1980s and are known for their near exclusive focus on bossam or boiled/simmered and sliced pork, eaten with a range of condiments and wraps. This is one of my very favourite Korean dishes/meals. Manbae Arirang apparently uses a special cut of Korean pork belly for their bossam and are known for a lighter, non-greasy take on the dish. There are a number of branches scattered around the city. We were at the Gongdeok location, getting in quick lunch before a spot of business at the nearby Fulbright office. Continue reading
Sangeetha (Delhi, July 2025)
This was my first trip to Delhi with the family on which we did not eat a single meal at Cafe Lota. This is not because there’s been a decline in quality at Cafe Lota since I ate there in March. It’s because parental complications on the day we met the friend I/we always eat lunch at Cafe Lota with meant that we had to be back home not too late in the afternoon. And so rather than drive all the way to Pragati Maidan from Gurgaon, we shaved 40-60 minutes off the round-trip by driving to Green Park. Our destination? The first Delhi outlet of Sangeetha, a Chennai-based South Indian chain with a very strong reputation. Continue reading
Hwapo Sikdang (Seoul, July 2025)
Back to Seoul. So far I have reported on meals eaten during our week-long visit in July that centered on fried chicken, noodle soup and dumplings, naengmyeon, and the pleasures of Gwangjang Market. Here now is a report on the first of two meals centered on what in the US is one of the most iconic genres of Korean food: grilled meat. Arguably, in the US Korean bbq is mostly identified with grilled beef, with pork as a sort of handmaiden. Beef is probably in the ascendancy in Korea as well but, unlike in most American cities with established Korean communities and food scenes, there are a large number of establishments that focus on pork, and specifically on Korean pork. We happened on one of them, more or less by accident, while wandering the area around Namdaemun Market in seach of dinner: Hwapo Sikdang. Continue reading
Inja (Delhi, July 2025)
This meal represents one of the worst choices I’ve made in recent trips to Delhi. Not, I hasten to clarify, on account of the meal itself. No, the terrible decision was to make plans that needed us to drive from Gurgaon to Friends Colony on a weeknight. No one who lives in the Delhi NCR will be surprised to hear this but it took us more than two hours to get from DLF Phase 1 to Friends Colony. Total distance? 16 km or 10 miles. After this ordeal the dinner, at Inja in the Manor Hotel, would have needed to have been very good to not be disappointing. I am happy to say that it was indeed very good. Almost as happy as I am to say that the return journey took only 45 minutes. Read on for the details (on the meal, not the return journey, which was uneventful). Continue reading
All Saints (Minneapolis)
All Saints opened in North East Minneapolis just about four years ago. They received acclaim from the local press almost immediately. Cynics—not me, of course—might say that it’s hard to find a high-end restaurant in these parts that hasn’t received high acclaim from the local press. But in this case the acclaim from the press was matched by a number of regular readers of this blog who wrote in behind the scenes to recommend I eat there or to ask why I hadn’t already eaten there. The answer to that question is partly that the thing that had impressed itself on my mind from the early press was that this was a restaurant with not much meat on the menu. Now, I like my vegetables but when I go out to eat I do like to have a number of fleshly options. And so they receded from view a bit. When I looked at their website again recently I noted that the menu is described as “veg forward, meat friendly”. Perhaps this slogan has always been on the menu but I’m not sure what it means right now when 50% of the menu comprises meat dishes. Well, one of the things it means is that I made a reservation and we finally descended on them this past weekend, accompanied by a couple of friends we eat out with often. Here’s how it went. Continue reading