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
Tag Archives: Twin Cities Lao
Khâluna III (Minneapolis)
I ate at Khâluna twice in 2022, once after a work event and once with the missus and friends. Both meals were among the highlights of my Twin Cities restaurant outings in 2022. We had planned to go back again this year for dinner. As it happened, it was once again a work event that was the occasion for it. My department held a retreat* in the Twin Cities and I was asked to help figure out dinner after, somewhere not too far away from where we spent the day in discussion. It was a Monday and we were a large group and through a process of elimination we arrived at Khâluna. Not that it was simple. We were originally to be a group of 10-12 and Khâluna’s largest tables in the restaurant seat eight. Booking the private dining space was outside our budget; this left one option: their so-called Patio Lounge. This is one end of their large covered patio space, where up to 14 guests can be accommodated on a combination of couches and poufs. There’s a minimum required spend of $350 but as we were certain to pass it, we made the booking. Quite predictably, by the morning of the event our dinner numbers went down to eight. But we were glad to be in the lounge space anyway as it made for a more convivial gathering. Here’s how the meal itself went. Continue reading
Khâluna, Again (Minneapolis)
I first ate at Khâluna in early April. That meal was eaten with some colleagues and I liked it so much (see my review here) that I was resolved to eat there again soon with the missus. That happened only three weeks later but it has taken me almost three months since to write the second dinner up. This is not because I was less enthusiastic about this meal—it was also very good. It’s just that I had a big backlog of restaurant write-ups to get to and didn’t want to run a write-up of a repeat visit so soon after the first. The good news is that since Khâluna’s menu does not turn over much, if at all, this write-up is still relevant: everything we ate at this dinner is still on their menu. Having now eaten most of that menu, I would recommend most of it if you have a reservation. Continue reading
Khâluna (Minneapolis)
In December 2019—just a few months before you-know-what happened—we ate dinner at Lat14 in Golden Valley and rather enjoyed it. We’d planned to go back but then ended up spending most of the next 2 years at home. By the time we began to get back into the dining out groove in Minnesota, the chef/owner of Lat14, Ann Ahmed, had a new restaurant in South Minneapolis: Khâluna. We had quite enjoyed our meal at Lat14 and so were looking forward to eating her food at Khâluna as well. Reservations, however, were hard to come by until I managed to score one for mid-January. And then the omicron spike happened in a big way and we had to cancel. It took another three months for me to finally make it there. I ate dinner there for the first time in early April along with some colleagues. I liked it so much that I immediately made another reservation to go back with the missus and some of our regular dining crew. We ate that meal this past weekend. I’d originally thought I’d post an account of both meals at the same time but after resizing 45+ photographs from the first meal, I gave that up. So what follows is an account of my first meal there. You’ll have to wait a few weeks for the second. Continue reading
Lat14 (Golden Valley, MN)
As I recently noted, the last few years have seen a dramatic upswing in high-end Twin Cities restaurants featuring the cuisines of minority communities. If—as I observed—in the case of Mexican cuisine(s) this phenomenon seems to involve mostly non-Mexican chefs and restaurateurs, in the case of Southeast Asian cuisines the situation is different. Young Joni, whose chef Ann Kim won the Beard award for “Best Chef: Midwest” this year, is probably the most celebrated of these restaurants. Hai Hai, whose chef Christina Nguyen, was nominated for the same award, is not too far behind. (For what it’s worth, we enjoyed our meal at Hai Hai a lot more than our meal at Young Joni.) Lat14, which opened last year in Golden Valley, is the most recent entry in the broad genre. We were there with friends a few weeks ago, and ate a goodly portion of the menu. Here is my review of that meal. Continue reading