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
Tag Archives: Vietnamese Cuisine
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
Pho Tempo II (Burnsville, MN)
Earlier this year I posted a review of a couple of lunches at Pho Tempo, the revamped restaurant attached to Saigon Asian Market in Burnsville. I then pronounced it the best Vietnamese restaurant south of the river and one of the better ones in the Twin Cities metro on the whole. After several meals eaten there since then I see no reason to change that assessment: this is clearly the best Vietnamese restaurant in the South Metro and I don’t think there can be too many better ones in the larger area. And if there are, I would really like to know which they are. Here follows a quick look at three meals eaten there since the spring. Continue reading
Pho Tempo (Burnsville, MN)
This is both my first review of Pho Tempo in Burnsville and it is not. That is because Pho Tempo is the new name of the restaurant attached to Saigon Market (in the Towne & Country shopping centre, where Highway 13 meets Cliff Ave.). I posted a pandemic takeout report on it back when it was still called Saigon Deli (that name persists in the check printouts at Pho Tempo). But it’s not just the name that has changed. The space—still open to the market on two sides—has been renovated and the menu too has been given a refresh. The result is what is probably the best Vietnamese restaurant in the South Metro, and one that, in my opinion, gives many of the better places in the Twin Cities proper a run for their money. So we thought, anyway, after two meals eaten there this past week. Continue reading
Trieu Chau, The Return (St. Paul, MN)
My report on El Triunfo last week was supposed to have been my last/only Minnesota food report in January but, yet again, I fail to keep my word. Our older boy spent the second half of last week at a gathering of juvenile nerds in the Twin Cities called Youth in Government and we had the opportunity on Saturday to tour the capitol and see the kids in action. Our own boy, being an 8th grader, wasn’t actually at the Capitol but it was still cool and not a little ironic to see a bunch of high-school kids doing a better job of modeling American democracy than actual Republican members of the House of Representatives in Washington DC. And since the tour was at 1, we decided it would be easiest to have a quick lunch down the road in St. Paul beforehand. Which is how we found ourselves once again on the Twin Cities’ true Eat Street, at one of our favourite Vietnamese restaurants, Trieu Chau. Continue reading
Tin Tea (Northfield, MN)
Northfield, Minnesota may be the only college town in the US with two colleges but not even one restaurant serving pho. We’re now one step closer though: as of this summer we have our first Vietnamese restaurant. Tin Tea opened in June as a Vietnamese tea specialist and that is still what they are. In August they began serving a selection of banh mi as well. I was tipped off to this by my friend Ben and was delighted to discover that he had not been exaggerating when he’d said the banh mi was very good indeed. About a month ago they added spring rolls to the menu. Now, I know what you’re thinking: surely, pho is next. Alas, that is unlikely to be the case (read on to find out why). But what they do serve is all very tasty and enough reason to wish devoutly that they will continue to do well. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 51: Trieu Chau (St. Paul, MN)
We’ve eaten a fair bit of Vietnamese food in this past pandemic year but somehow we hadn’t gotten back to the restaurant that has over the last several years been perhaps our favourite slinger of pho: Trieu Chau on University Ave. in St. Paul. Well, we fixed that this past weekend. I’m not sure what incarnations their service model has gone through in the last year but they are currently open for dine-in and takeout. We are, however, not yet open for dining in and so it was takeout only for us. I called in our order just after 10 am (which is when they seem to open even though their menu etc. says 11 am) and picked it up just before 11. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 43: Pho Everest (Lakeville, MN)
We’ve been trying very hard through the pandemic, even in the winter, to get in a long family walk every weekend before picking up takeout. We’ve managed it most weeks, though sometimes a bit farcically. Two weeks ago, for example, we arrived at a park in Richfield to find the walking trails entirely covered in sheet ice—we ended up walking a couple of miles on very unattractive sidewalk through the adjoining neighbouhood instead. Some weekends, however, we succumb to laziness. And so even though this past weekend was warm by January in Minnesota standards the family ended up vegging indoors while I drove a scant 20 minutes to Lakeville to pick up Vietnamese food from Pho Everest in the Crossroads strip mall at the corner of Dodd and Cedar Avenue. 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
Pandemic Takeout 24: Pho Valley (Apple Valley, MN)
This week’s pandemic takeout reports sees us remaining in Dakota County. After last week’s excellent takeout from House of Curry in Rosemount, we move a bit further west in physical terms to Apple Valley and a bit further east in culinary geography to Vietnamese food. On the way back from a Costco run I stopped at Pho Valley in that massive complex between Cedar Avenue and Co. Rd. 42 and picked up some spring/egg rolls, some soups, a banh mi and some grilled meat. It was our first time getting takeout from them, whether during or before the pandemic. I am pleased to report that while nothing was amazing everything hit the spot. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 09: Simplee Pho (Apple Valley)
As I’ve noted before, we live in probably the only college town in the US—one with two colleges, in fact—that has no Thai or Vietnamese food on offer. There is serviceable Thai food available within 20-30 minutes drive (Taste of Thaiyai in Apple Valley, for example, or Thai Curry House in Burnsville or Joy’s Thai in Lakeville—where we recently got some pandemic takeout from); but in normal times we prefer to drive further to the Twin Cities’s real “Eat Street” for food that is substantially better. For Vietnamese food, and pho in particular, the gulf is less wide and we’re happy to eat at Pho Valley and Simplee Pho in Apple Valley when taken by a sudden urge for a good bowl of noodle soup. And so it was that after doing curbside pickup of Indian groceries at Mantra Bazaar on Saturday, I stopped at Simplee Pho to pick up a few things. Continue reading
Pho Valley II (Apple Valley, MN)
There are three dedicated Vietnamese restaurants in the Apple Valley-Lakeville area (that I know of): Pho Everest, Simplee Pho and Pho Valley. I’ve reviewed them all in the past and am now in the process of checking in on them all again. I re-reviewed Pho Everest last year and here I am now with a second look at Pho Valley. It is very conveniently situated for us for lunches on the way back from the Burnsville Costco—though the opening of Kumar’s Mess in the same mega-strip mall has cut a bit into the amount of custom we’ve been giving them of late. Still, in the Minnesota winter it’s hard to pass up a good bowl of noodle soup and Pho Valley’s pho broth has in the past been superior in our estimation to that at their local competition. Is that still the case? Continue reading
Hai Hai (Minneapolis)
Hai Hai opened in Northeast Minneapolis in late 2017 or early 2018. It got a lot of buzz right away as the second restaurant from the chef/owners of the previously buzzy Hola Arepa, Christina Ngyuen and Birk Grudem. We have still not been to Hola Arepa and until last Saturday had not been to Hai Hai as well. The reasons for this will not be mysterious to anyone who knows my views on the Twin Cities dining scene or knows me personally. For one thing, I am always cautious about the local food media’s penchant for over-hyping any openings that might be seen as placing the Twin Cities scene in the coastal restaurant conversation; for another, they serve a pan-Asian menu and in my experience in the US that’s rarely a good thing; and for a third, restaurants like Hai Hai (and Hola Arepa) seem to me to be aimed at people (mostly white and bougie) who do not normally go out to eat at restaurants that serve more traditional iterations of their food. And experience has led me to be wary of this phenomenon. 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
Chôm Chôm (Hong Kong, December 2018)
The friend with whom I’d eaten at Maxim’s Palace had also taken me to a Thai restaurant that night. It was a nice meal but not at the level of the best places in Los Angeles (I’ll write it up soon). The next night she wanted to take me to her favourite Vietnamese restaurant. I resisted, saying I wanted to eat as much Cantonese food as I could while I was there. Because you want to eat like a local? she asked. Yes, I said. Well then, she said, you should also see the city a bit through the eyes of the locals you know, and we want to take you to the places we go to a lot. This is how we ended up at Chôm Chôm in Soho, just the kind of restaurant I would never have gone to on my own—a trendy, small-plates place with no reservations and long waits that looks like it could be in any major world city. And it was a very good meal. Continue reading