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
Tag Archives: Twin Cities Noodle Soup
Tori (St. Paul, MN)
Another month, another review of a ramen specialist in the Twin Cities. Though our lunch at Ramen Kazama in Minneapolis last month didn’t blow us away, it did make us interested to check the state of ramen offerings more generally in the Twin Cities metro. Here, accordingly, is a report on St. Paul’s premier ramen outlet: Tori. They first opened as Tori Ramen in 2016 on Victoria St. in St. Paul and later opened another location in Northeast Minneapolis. The “Ramen” was dropped from the name at some point when the menu expanded to include more cooked items. Both of those locations are now closed and the only remaining location is the one opened in early 2020 in a restored train car on West 7th St. in St. Paul. This location too is only called Tori, even though they currently only serve ramen. We descended on them for a quick lunch this weekend ahead of some grocery shopping at Dragon Star. 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
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
Pho Ca Dao (St. Paul, MN)
I have a quick report today on one of the Twin Cities’ classic pho restaurants. Pho Ca Dao is located on University Avenue (where else?) at Arundel—right across the street from Thai Garden and Cheng Heng—and is as pure a pho operation as you can get. Well, I suppose if they only served pho it would be purer but they don’t serve very much more than that. Only one other savoury dish in fact: egg rolls. Yes, if you turn the menu over there are some desserts and some drinks but you don’t go to Pho Ca Dao if pho is not what you are looking for. You can choose between two set options, the Traditional (with steak, flank and tripe) or the House Special (which adds meatballs) or you can rig a custom bowl with a choice of any three meats (tendon, fatty brisket and chicken are the three others available). Your only other choice is whether you want a small or a large bowl. Then you sit back and wait. 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
Pandemic Takeout 36: Saigon Deli (Burnsville, MN)
The original plan for last weekend had been to drive up to St. Paul for a walk and pick up either Cambodian or Ethiopian takeout from one of our favourite places on/off University Ave. But things didn’t quite pan out that way. Instead I went a little closer to home: to Saigon Deli in Burnsville. This is the restaurant attached to the Saigon Market. We have not yet eaten there. We used to shop regularly at Saigon Market when they were located in Eagan, a hop, skip and a jump from The Cellars. A few years ago they moved to their new digs on Highway 13 in Burnsville. I’d made a few forays to check out the new space at its scheduled opening but it took them quite a while longer to actually get going and by the time that happened they had completely slid off my radar. I have to thank my friend Pierre therefore for mentioning the store in an email last week. I finally stopped in and picked up a bunch of frozen fish and quite a bit of food from the restaurant. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 29: Pho Pasteur (St. Paul, MN)
The plan for this past weekend had originally been a walk around a park in Maplewood followed by takeout from Indian Masala, an Indian restaurant in Maplewood that’s been recommended highly to me by Mike McGuinness (who runs the excellent East Metro Foodies Facebook group). But the plan never quite came together and we ended walking around Como Lake instead and picking up more Vietnamese food to take back to the yard of the friends in St. Paul we often do these walk+meals with. On the last occasion we’d picked up lunch from iPho by Saigon; this time we hit up Pho Pasteur, which is very close to their house. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 26: iPho by Saigon (St. Paul, MN)
After four weeks of eating food from restaurants in the South and West Metro (from House of Curry, Grand Szechuan, Pho Valley and Godavari), we finally made it back to St. Paul this weekend. Not surprisingly, we ended up on University Ave.—the Twin Cities’ true “Eat Street”—not too far from Homi, our last port of call in St. Paul. It was another Vietnamese meal, this time from iPho by Saigon. As it happens my very first meal in Minnesota was here when I visited friends in the November of 2006—it was then called just Saigon. We ate there after we moved here the following year as well but somehow not since I started reviewing restaurants on the blog. I’m not sure at what point they tacked on the “iPho by” to their name but it’s been several years. We’ve been tempted over the years but somehow when looking for Vietnamese food in that neck of the woods we usually end up at Trieu Chau. This weekend, however, was iPho by Saigon. How did it go? 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
Pho Valley (Apple Valley, MN)
Following my reviews of Pho Everest in Lakeville, Cam Ranh Bay in Burnsville and Simplee Pho in Apple Valley, here is another report on a no-frills but solid Vietnamese place in the Twin Cities South Metro: Pho Valley in Apple Valley. They mostly sling pho and they’re in Apple Valley and hence the name, I assume. They’ve been open somewhere between one and two years and are located in the mega strip mall at the intersection of Cedar Avenue and 150th/County Road 42. It’s a larger restaurant than Simplee Pho but has a more limited menu. On the plus side, most of what I’ve had of what they put out has been mostly pretty solid. Continue reading
Masu Sushi & Noodles (Apple Valley, MN)
Apple Valley, a suburb of the Twin Cities, is not a place you’d probably look for Japanese food in and my experiences at Masu Sushi & Noodles suggest that it’s probably best if you don’t. It’s not bad per se but the best I could say of the best of what I ate was that it was inoffensive. This is generally true of the larger Japanese food scene in the area. Whether it’s the original Origami or newer places like Sushi Fix or Kyatchi, restaurants that would be marginal in most major cities in the US are talked about breathlessly here by the professionals as though they could hold their own anywhere. This makes it hard to know what to make of highly-praised newer places, whether at the high end (see, for example, the new sushi and kaiseki place by an ex-Origami chef) or at the more affordable end (see the newer noodle/ramen shops that have opened in Minneapolis). Well, I can tell you that Masu Sushi & Noodles in Apple Valley is not a place you should go to expecting good sushi or noodles. Believe me, I would be very happy if I could tell you otherwise. Unfortunately, they’ve put far more effort into their vaguely Orientalist decor than into their recipes and execution. Continue reading
Pho Tau Bay (Minneapolis)
In the last year I’ve posted a number of reviews of Vietnamese restaurants in the Twin Cities and environs. There are two major thoroughfares in the area where the best of these can be found. One is University Avenue in St. Paul (home to Trieu Chau); the other is Nicollet “Eat Street” Avenue in Minneapolis. I’m yet to cover University Avenue in any detail but have already posted write-ups of two Vietnamese restaurants at the north end of Eat Street (Pho Hoa and Pho 79). Close to the middle of the street is the one that’s the most popular one of them all, Quang. This is not a review of Quang but of the restaurant that is at the very south end, the very end of Eat Street: Pho Tau Bay. It’s not exactly unknown but it’s also not talked about as much as it should be when it comes to Vietnamese food in the Twin Cities. Here’s a brief write-up. Continue reading
Trieu Chau (St. Paul)
Though you wouldn’t know it from my unending stream of reviews of restaurants in London and Scotland—interrupted only by a writeup of the Little Africa festival in St. Paul last month—we’ve been back in Minnesota for almost three months now. And though you wouldn’t also know this from the blog, we’ve been eating a lot of one of the cuisines that Minnesota has far better exemplars of than London: Vietnamese (the other is Mexican). Accordingly, I am taking the opportunity to resume the slow-motion survey of noodle soup purveyors in the Twin Cities metro area that I’d commenced last winter with reviews of Pho Hoa, Pho 79 and Cam Ranh Bay. And what better place to start than Trieu Chau, which has been around for almost 30 years on University Avenue in St. Paul and remains one of the local gold standards for pho and more. No one in the broader Twin Cities area who likes Vietnamese food needs to be told about Trieu Chau but it’s always good to confirm that the old reliables are still reliable. Continue reading
Thai Curry House (Burnsville, MN)
Living an hour south of the Twin Cities is no fun if you enjoy eating out. We live in a town with two colleges that somehow does not have a single Thai or Vietnamese restaurant—though given the state of our Chinese restaurants and the lone Indian restaurant that’s probably not a bad thing. The only decent food in town, really, is very casual Mexican at El Triunfo and there’s only so many times we can eat there in a month. Things don’t improve very much as you go further north. Not, in fact, until you cross the river into Bloomington: there Grand Szechuan heaves into view. But if you were looking for Thai food it used to be that you’d have to go much further to get anything that even went past passable status.