It’s been a while since we’ve eaten at Homi, almost exactly a full year in fact (my last write-up of a meal there was posted on August 29, 2023). Homi has long been our favourite affordable Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities metro—and until Oro came along it might even have been our favourite Mexican restaurant of any kind in the Twin Cities metro. This is not on account of just their food (which has always been very tasty) or their menu (which has always been far more expansive than those at most other affordable Mexican restaurants). It’s also because of their hospitality. The pandemic and then inflation has been very hard on small restaurants (and other small businesses) that don’t have very many resources to fall back on. But Homi has managed to stick it out through it all so far with their trademark warmth. This is their 15th year of operation—that’s a pretty good number in this business but in truth they feel like an institution that’s been around longer. They deserve all the support they can get to keep things going. To that end, here’s a quick writeup of a recent lunch there with friends we’ve eaten with at Homi many times before. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Homi
Homi, August 2023 (St. Paul, MN)
Hey, it’s a Twin Cities restaurant report! We were in Europe for nine weeks this summer, first in Italy on vacation and then in Ireland on work. We ate well in both countries, particularly in Italy and I’m not complaining about our time away. But when you’re gone for nine weeks, there are things you take for granted at home that you are invariably going to miss and hanker for. And for us, when going to most parts of Europe from the US, at the top of that list food-wise are most Asian cuisines and also Mexican cuisine. Now, as it happens, we found surprisingly good Sichuan food in Dublin—and also better dim sum than is available in the Twin Cities. Unsurprising, though, is that Mexican food in Ireland does not have the best reputation. This was drilled into our heads by every American we met who’d eaten at some Mexican restaurant or the other in Dublin, and after a few repetitions we decided not to put that to the test. So when we got back to Minnesota last week the thing we really wanted to go out to eat was Mexican food. And what better place to go than Homi on University Avenue in St. Paul? Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 52: Back to Homi (St. Paul, MN)
Those who read my pandemic takeout posts regularly know that we’ve been wanting and planning to get back to Homi for a while now. Something or the other has been getting in the way. We could have hit them up a week ago but the weather that weekend was not going to be conducive to outdoor dining and so we decided to do a Vietnamese meal (from Trieu Chau) by ourselves. This past weekend, however, was a different story. It was warm and sunny which meant we could return to pandemic deck lunching with friends—which in turn meant we could get a very large order from Homi, with most of our favourite dishes on it. And so we did. And it was good. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 21: Homi (St. Paul)
Our takeout range has expanded a fair bit in the last few months of the pandemic. At the end of June we finally made it to the Twin Cities’ true “Eat Street” to pick up Thai food from Bangkok Thai Deli. We then went back for more Thai food from Thai Cafe. And last weekend we finally got back to our favourite Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities: Homi. I’ve reviewed meals at Homi thrice before (first in 2016 and then in 2018 and 2019). After our trip to India in January we had been looking forward to going back and then the pandemic hit. We’d have liked to have supported them through the early months of the stay at home orders but living 50-60 minutes away, as we do, it just wasn’t on the cards. I am glad to be able to report therefore that they have made it through the pandemic so far and that the food we picked up from them on Saturday to eat with friends in their backyard in St. Paul was perhaps the best meal we’ve had from them in some time. Continue reading
A Return to Homi and the Question of Who Makes Money Cooking Mexican Food
As I have said before, since the demise of La Huasteca, Homi on University Avenue in St. Paul (where else?) has been our favourite Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities. I’ve reviewed it twice before (here and here). But I like to keep up on the blog with our favourite restaurants, not just eating there but also reporting on their trajectories over time, checking in on how things are going. Accordingly, I have another report today on a recent dinner at Homi. We ate there two weeks ago with friends after a rather disappointing theater outing (The Song of the Summer at Mixed Blood). The dinner, I am glad to say, was much better. Continue reading
Homi, Again (St. Paul, MN)
A nice thing about reviewing restaurants on your own blog is that there’s no compulsion to only go to new(er) places—you can go back and revisit places and see if they’ve maintained their standards (and in some cases, to see if they’ve gotten better). I’ve done a fair bit of that this year with returns to Tilia, Hmongtown Marketplace, Bangkok Thai Deli, Szechuan, Tea House, House of Curry, Spoon and Stable, A&L Chinese, On’s Kitchen and Grand Szechuan. Here now is my second report on what is now probably our favourite Mexican restaurant, Homi, on University Avenue in St. Paul. I posted my first write-up just over two years ago. We’ve eaten there a few more times since and this seems like a good time for a re-visit on the blog. This report covers meals eaten over the last year and a half, though the pictures are all from two dinners, one last summer, and one two weekends ago. I am happy to report that Homi is still very good. Continue reading
Homi (St. Paul)
Homi has been around on University Avenue in St. Paul for seven years now. Friends who work and live in the area had been telling me about it for some time now but somehow we didn’t get around to eating there until earlier this summer. This is largely because we are creatures of habit—when food shopping in St. Paul we’d eat at On’s Kitchen or Bangkok Thai Deli; our Mexican eating would happen on the way to and back food shopping in north Minneapolis—at Los Ocampo or Maya or, for a brief, glorious period, at La Huasteca. After the demise of the original version of La Huasteca, however, we were in need of a place that would fill the soulful hole in our Mexican food world (neither Los Ocampo and Maya quite fit that description). And so we finally ended up at Homi. And while I am not quite ready to say that it has helped me come to terms with the disappearance of Jose Gonzalez’s birria and barbacoa (and much else), I will say that Homi comes pretty close. Continue reading