My previous report from Seoul was of dinner at Nampo Myeonok. That meal was centered on naengmyeon. My report today is of a lunch at another of Seoul’s venerable restaurants. This meal was also centered on noodles and noodle soups, none of which were naengmyeon. We were at Myeongdong Kyoja, a restaurant, famous for their food and also for only having four dishes on the menu between April and October (and only three between November and March). We were there in July. There were four dishes on the menu and there were four of us there to eat, and so we got one of everything; it was the right thing to do. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Noodle Soup
Tenka Ramen (Minneapolis)
We ate in Minneapolis’ Lyn-Lake neighbourhood a few weeks ago—see my report on dim sum lunch at Jade Dynasty—and were back there again this past weekend. This time we were eating Japanese, not Chinese food, not dim sum but ramen. Tenka Ramen is located just a few doors down from Lake St.’s intersection with Hennepin, not very many blocks away from Jade Dynasty. I’m not sure when they opened; they only flashed on my radar when someone recommended them in a comment elsewhere on the blog. Having recently begun to check out the Twin Cities’ ramen scene in earnest—see my reviews of meals at Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis and at Tori in St. Paul—I’d made a note to check them out at some point. That point turned out to be for Mother’s Day lunch. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Ramen Kazama (Minneapolis)
It’s been almost two years since my last review of a ramen-centered meal in the Twin Cities metro (well, if you exclude my report on El Sazon Tacos & More, which included a bowl of their birria ramen). That last ramen report was from Itton Ramen in Bloomington. We were not terribly impressed. I noted in that review that there is better ramen available in the Twin Cities but it has taken me almost two years to get around to writing some of it up. This is partly because it’s been a busy two years with a lot of time spent outside Minnesota; but frankly, it’s mostly because a good chunk of that time spent outside Minnesota has been in places with far better ramen and so eating ramen here has not felt like a huge priority. When looking for noodle soup here we’re more likely to look in a Southeast Asian direction. That said, Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis is a pretty decent option. I’ve eaten stray bowls of ramen there over the years while running errands in the area; here, finally, is a report on a larger meal with the family. Continue reading
Hoa Bien (St. Paul, MN)
My Twin Cities restaurant reporting for 2025 begins fittingly on the Cities’ true “Eat Street”, University Avenue in St. Paul. And it finds me finally writing about one of University Avenue’s Vietnamese mainstays: Hoa Bien. They have been in their current location at the corner of University and Lexington Pkwy since 2005. But as per the staff, the original location—also on University—had opened in the late 1970s. I’m not sure if that makes them the oldest extant Vietnamese restaurant in the Twin Cities but it must certainly put them in the running. (If anyone reading knows more about which places, if any, have been around longer, please write in.) They’ve been at this location since before we arrived in Minnesota (in 2007) and we ate there fairly early in our time here. After that they fell out of our rotation well before I started reviewing restaurants on the blog and I never got around to going back and writing them up. I’m happy to be able to fix that now. We ate two meals there at the end of the year, on successive weekends. Here’s how they went. Continue reading
Mian (Costa Mesa, CA)
Our first meal out on our trip to Southern California in June was at the location of Din Tai Fung in the fancy South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Our penultimate meal saw us return to almost the exact location for more casual Chinese food. We ate one floor down, literally right below Din Tai Fung, at Mian. A noodle/soup specialist, as you might expect from the name, Mian is a mini-chain spun off by the proprietors of Chengdu Taste several years ago. They now have eight locations in all: five in Southern California, one in Las Vegas, one in Houston and one in Honolulu. At all of them the menu is centered on noodle and noodle soup dishes along with a short list of Sichuan snacks. Portions are generous and prices are reasonable (though maybe they feel more so when eating at the South Coast Plaza). All in all, it makes for a good family meal without having to wait very long to be seated. Continue reading
Tomizo Ramen (Gardena, CA, June 2024)
As I’ve said on numerous occasions before, my mother-in-law’s move from Koreatown to Seal Beach a few years ago has been a paradigm-shifting experience for us—one that is still ongoing. My first 10 years in the US were lived in Los Angeles—first by USC, then in West LA, then in Santa Monica, then West LA again, and finally in that stretch of Olympic Blvd. between Robertson and La Cienega that doesn’t really have a name (or at least not one I have ever known). And when the missus—raised in Los Angeles proper—and I returned to LA on our annual visits after we first left in 2003, it was to her mother’s house in Koreatown we came and which was our base. My general experience of Los Angeles County until a few years ago was thus largely contained in the polygon formed by the 10, 405 and 101 freeways (with a major exception made for the San Gabriel Valley). It’s not that I never ventured out of that sprawling zone but that was my Los Angeles, my Southern California, and also to a large extent, the missus’ as well. Continue reading
Pho Tempo III (Burnsville, MN)
Last year I posted two reports on meals eaten at Pho Tempo, the current incarnation of the erstwhile Saigon Deli, the restaurant attached to Saigon Market in Burnsville (here and here). I pronounced it easily the best Vietnamese restaurant we’ve eaten at in the South Metro and among the very best in the Twin Cities proper. In mid-2024 I can tell you that I still do not have any reason to revise that evaluation. Pho Tempo has become part of our regular rotation and indeed part of our regular monthly grocery shopping routine. This routine involves a long outing with stops at Costco (for staples), Hana Market (for Korean ingredients) and Mantra Bazaar (for Indian ingredients). In between we stop at Saigon Market to buy pompano and greens and usually also to eat lunch at Pho Tempo. Since returning from our Bombay/Seoul program in late-March we’ve eaten there four times on this itinerary. Here now is a quick report on all those meals. Continue reading
Teumsae Ramyun (Seoul, March 2024)
I’d said I’d probably have a review today of one of our fine dining meals in Seoul. Yet again, I have lied to you. I have instead for you a review of a meal at almost the opposite end of the price spectrum, featuring ramyun (the Korean incarnation of ramen). This meal was eaten at the Anguk branch of Teumsae Ramyun, a chain which has been around several decades now. It is one of many similar restaurants all over the city (and the country) which serve cheap meals of packet ramyun that are further customized by the kitchen. Teumsae Ramyun has their own brand of ramyun which is used in their restaurants. They are known for their spicy ramen, which comes in three settings from low to high. They have a few versions of ramyun on the menu, along with a few options for gimbap, rice bowls and mandu/dumplings and that’s it. These are not restaurants to linger in. On weeknights they’re mostly filled with solo diners or pairs eating a quick, cheap meal on their way home from work. Well, we weren’t on our way home from work but we did also stop by on a weeknight. Here’s a quick report on how it went. Continue reading
Bukchon Kalguksu (Seoul, February 2024)
After yesterday’s image-heavy (and then some) report from Bombay’s Sassoon Dock fish market, I have for you today a relatively restrained report from Seoul. This was one of our earliest meals in the city, eaten on the go just a couple of days after arrival. As with our first two meals (only one of which I’ve yet reported on), this was eaten in a restaurant on Insadong-gil, the main tourist drag of Insadong (the neighbourhood we’ve been living in). The main street is lined with souvenir shops and the like and is a magnet for tourist shopping. The alleys that branch off to the sides are filled with cafes and restaurants. I don’t know if anyone has tried to eat at them all, or if anyone has tried to provide a comprehensive guide to the restaurants on the street. But our experiences suggest that you can’t go very wrong just choosing a place at random. Though not all restaurants in Seoul are great, or even very good, I’m yet to eat at one that comes anywhere close to being mediocre, leave alone bad. Bukchon Kalguksu falls, I would say, in the “quite good” end of the spectrum. Continue reading
Lanzhou Ramen (Milan, July 2023)
Four and a half months after our trip to Italy ended, I am finally almost done with my meal reports. The last leg of our stay was in Milan. We were there for two nights and a day, partly to see the Last Supper and partly to meet up with one of my oldest, dearest friends who lives an hour outside Milan. She and her husband drove over for dinner in the evening. That meal featured Italian food. For lunch, however, we ate our first non-Italian meal in three weeks. We hadn’t really planned this. We’d chosen our AirBnB on the basis of proximity to the train station and after arrival from Padua we didn’t have the energy to go very far for lunch or the appetite for anything very filling. Google indicated that we were in a neighbourhood that featured a number of Asian restaurants and we decided to go eat a light lunch of noodle soup and dumplings at a place called Lanzhou Ramen, about 7 minutes walk from our flat. We arrived to find a small but attractive restaurant. Here’s how the meal went. Continue reading
Eating at Gwangjang Market, Pt. 2 (Seoul, March 2023)
Here, only about four months after my return, is my last dining report from my trip to Seoul in March. It features the third and fourth of four dinners in a row eaten at Gwangjang Market, my absolute favourite place to visit on this trip. As you may recall from my first dining report from the market, at my first visit I ate dumpling soup; and on my second, I ate yukhoe tangtangi (seasoned raw beef with the chopped tentacles of a recently dispatched octopus). By the time of my third visit my overeating had been catching up with me. I’d eaten a deep-fried lunch at Namdaemun Market that day and so was in the mood for something light and fresh. Accordingly, I honed in on the stalls selling hwe or sliced raw fish and sat down at the first one that had empty seats. The following night I happened on the stall of an international celebrity but passed on the dish she is most famous for, in favour, once again, of something light and fresh. Details follow. Continue reading
Bukchon Son Mandu, Insadong (Seoul, March 2023)
Back to Seoul. I’ve previously posted a look at my dinner on my second night there—it featured excellent haemultang at Wonjo Agujjim—and lunch later in the week at Namdaemun Market’s kalguksu alley. Here now is a report on the place where I ate my first meal a little after arrival at my hotel: Bukchon Son Mandu in Insadong. The temptation to lie down and take a nap was strong but I resisted and went out to wander and try to get my bearings near the hotel. Walking through the narrow alleys off Insadong-gil I happened on Bukchon Son Mandu. I liked the food well enough that I also stopped in there for a small snack after lunch on my second day. And for reasons of convenience it was also the place where I ate my last lunch before heading to the airport. Here is a look at the restaurant and everything I ate. Continue reading
Lunch at the Kalguksu Alley in Namdaemun Market (Seoul, March 2023)
I will be taking a bunch of students to Seoul for five weeks next February/March (we’ll get there after five weeks in Bombay). In preparation for this trip, I recently spent a week in Seoul, visiting sites, checking out possible accommodations and group activities; and, of course, also eating.
Though the missus was born in Seoul and lived there till the age of nine (at which point she moved to Los Angeles with her family), we have not been to Seoul as a family and nor had I ever been there before myself. I was a little intimidated by the thought of navigating the city by myself for a week but quite predictably ended up having a blast in the periods of time before, between and after my appointments. I walked an average of 7 miles a day—a lot of it to markets where I ate. One of these markets was Namdaemun Market—I ate lunch there on three consecutive days. Here is a look at my second lunch, eaten on a Friday in the market’s famous “Kalguksu Alley”. Continue reading
Itton Ramen (Bloomington, MN)
I recently got a tip from a reader about a new’ish ramen place in Bloomington. Ramen is big in our family and so we were glad of the news. While there is good ramen to be had in Minneapolis and St. Paul, it’s would be very nice to have some a bit closer to us. And so on Saturday we showed up at Itton Ramen with a couple of the friends we often eat out with. As I also like to support small restaurants, I would love to tell you that we found it to be an unsung gem. But, alas, that was not our experience. While the meal, on the whole, was not bad per se, it was more than a little underwhelming on most counts. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Magic Noodle (St. Paul, MN)
Magic Noodle, which opened on University Ave. in St. Paul (the Twin Cities’ true Eat Street) last summer, represents a small step in the evolution of the broader Chinese food scene in the Twin Cities. The local Sichuan scene is already pretty strong, with a few restaurants that would be viable propositions in much larger metros with larger Chinese populations. But beyond that there’s been little: our dim sum scene hovers around the edge of dismal, there’s no real Cantonese food of quality or any other regional Chinese restaurants for that matter (that I’m aware of at any rate). And so to have a decent hand-pulled noodle shop open up feels like a big thing. Yes, similar noodle soups are available at restaurants like Grand Szechuan as well but it’s good to have a specialist. Based on our meal at the start of the month I wouldn’t say that they’re very much more than a decent hand-pulled noodle shop at the moment but I’m not complaining too much. Continue reading
Pho Everest, Again (Lakeville, MN)
We have a long history of making poor decisions when it comes to bad weather and driving long distances for food; and so the morning snow on Saturday did not keep us from sticking to our plan to drive to St. Paul for lunch at iPho followed by a trip to the Science Museum. There wasn’t much snow falling from the sky and the friends we were planning to caravan with said roads were clear in town and we figured the highway would be fine too. It didn’t take too long to discover, however, that the highway was not fine. Slick conditions meant a bunch of cars spun out and in the ditch and a mile or so from the exit for Lakeville traffic was slowed to a crawl. We called our friends in their car and we all decided it was a good idea to not drive to St. Paul even if traffic opened up by the time we got to the exit. Well, it didn’t and so we got off and decided to go to Pho Everest in Lakeville instead. Continue reading
TeaWood (Hong Kong, December 2018)
I’d said I had only two food reports left to come from my Hong Kong trip but I lied. I’d planned to post a single compendium of my smaller meals and quick bites but there were just too many pictures to resize. And so I’ve split them into two posts. This one will give you a brief look at TeaWood, a Taiwanese restaurant; the next will cover my random dumpling eating etc.
Like pretty much every successful restaurant in Hong Kong, TeaWood is a chain. The majority of their branches are in Kowloon. As it happens, I had spent the entire morning in Kowloon that day but the branch I ate at is in Central, very close to my hotel. I’d had a very large breakfast—or rather three of them, beginning at Law Fu Kee, going on to the dumpling restaurant next to them and then finishing with an egg tart across the street. This is why I did not eat lunch in Kowloon. But after walking for almost 8 miles I was ready for a bite when I got back to Central; and as that branch of TeaWood is right next to where I got off the Mid-Levels escalator at Wellington St. I felt it was futile to resist. Continue reading
Mak An Kee + Samdor (Hong Kong, December 2018)
What could be more Christmas than an account of eating wonton-noodle soup in Hong Kong? You’re welcome!
We come down from the hipstery heights of Soho to the small noodle shops that feed hungry office goers from the skyscrapers in the IFC area. On my first day in Hong Kong I had back to back bowls of wonton-noodle soup at Tsim Chai Kee and Mak’s Noodle, and a few days later I had back to back bowls of wonton-noodle soup at two other restaurants in the area: Mak An Kee and Samdor. Mak An Kee is, I believe, an offshoot from the original Mak’s family operation. Samdor is unrelated and I came across it while looking on Open Rice for other noodle soup places in the vicinity. Here’s a quick look at both. Continue reading