Kolap - St Paul

Lately we hit the wall, unable to find restaurants serving good, cheap, and different foods. I was about to hang it up. I felt like, to paraphrase John Madden, put a fork in me, I'm done. I lost my enthusiasm for writing and even Viagra wasn't going to give me a lift.

Then we hit upon Kolap, a Cambodian restaurant located at the corner of Dale and Thomas, an area many are just apt to quickly drive through. The outside is reminiscent of a neighborhood bar and the inside is typical 70s utilitarian restaurant furniture. That's fine with us because the money they save on decoration is passed onto the customer with heaping amounts of delicious food.

Beef shish-kabobs with pickled vegetables. Not pictured. The meat had a mildly sweet and salty flavor. Adding the vegetables made for a nice temperature and textural difference. It was decent.

Seam Reap Sour Soup with Shrimp - moqua, pineapple, lemongrass, cilantro, basil, chili peppers. I'm not a soup person but this was a fantastic soup ranking right up there with one of the best I've ever had. All taste sensations were engaged when consuming this soup and left the mouth guessing what was the next texture and taste - sweet, sour, or salty - to come. This was simply a wonderful and different soup. In itself it could have been a whole meal but I would have liked a little more protein.


Banh Sung. Similar to what Vietnamese restaurants offer. The spring/egg rolls are different from the Chia Gio and the noodle appears similar. This dish came out with a side bowl of a mild peanutty and what I assume to be very dilute fish sauce. It didn't have the zing of the Vietnamese version but was a welcome change. The flavors of this dish were much more mellow and a respite from the heat of the soup.

Lot Chha with Chicken. This dish had fat bean sprout shaped rice noodles along with bean sprouts. This also was more subtle in flavor but very well prepared with a slight wok hay flavor. Not only was the taste good but the textures were right for a good mouthfeel.

Total price: Slightly over $30, with leftovers for a nice lunch.

Bottom line: I shudder to reveal this hidden gem but it's a secret too good to keep to ourselves. Kolap is what this blog is all about, good cheap different sublime food at minuscule prices (for the TC area)! Kolap has restored my faith in TC eateries and my enthusiasm for writing. The little blue pills can now be stashed for the long cold nights...

601 Dale St
St Paul, MN

Yangtze - St Louis Park

It had been over three years since we last stepped into Yangtze and I was eager to try their food again. Back then, their dim sum was respectable, nothing spectacular but at least somewhat on par with other TC restaurants serving dim sum. Three years later, I can only assume ownership has changed because the bar has dropped so low that the competition need not worry Yangtze is competition.

You figure with the steam carts that the dim sum would be more than tepid. I popped a xiaolong bao the sadistic way into my mouth, whole, expecting an explosion of scalding liquid but alas at best it was mouth temperature. The filling was mush reminiscent of meat ground in a food processor left unattended or let run too long by an inexperienced cook.

Another pork and chive dumpling we had (don't recall name) at least had some texture to it but it seemed the kitchen was trying to save a few cents by sparing the salt. And it was cold, cold, cold...

Baked cha siu bao. Was this a variation I hadn't previously encountered? The bun itself was OK but the was filling was miserly in meat and packed a five spice punch. I don't know if five spice is normally an ingredient but if so, it should enhance the meat flavor, not be the flavor.

Egg roll like thing. It had the rice paper wrapper similar to what is used in Vietnamese cha gio but the filling was pure American. Carrots, celery, and mayonnaise. This is something Scrooge Squared would make. Crab ragoons are on my list of things not to eat in Chinese restaurants. I can add these to the list.

Seeing and tasting the dearth of good dim sum, we turned to the menu. Schezuan Spring Lamb and Green Onions at $13.75. Ouch. This better be good. It came out in a small platter. I can understand why after a few bites. The lamb itself is fairly decent but it's tongue stinging salty. Ack! A few moments later, the server asks of all questions, "Is it salty?" That question was a figurative punch to the gut. That tells me you knew something. Yes we reply. She explains and then takes it back and brings us a "new" platter about 5 minutes latter. It's still salty. Eat some and bag it. Take it home and and mix it in with other foods...

Bottom line: If I recall correctly since we were last here the prices have skyrocketed, and our taste buds tell us today the quality has plummeted. Ownership change? That's my guess. If you serve mediocre food, charge pocket change prices. In financial terms, for the $40 plus bucks including a mandatory 15% gratuity spent, this was the lowest ROI we've encountered since starting this blog.

Caravelle - Minneapolis

It's an unusual arrangement which I don't understand at all. Notice the address. Does it look somewhat familiar? It's the same address in an earlier posting. Yes, its the address of Pho 79. Why have too separate named restaurants - Vietnamese Pho 79 and the Chinese Caravelle - that occupy the same space? They even have two distinct menus although there is some overlap.

Mystery left unsolved, we ordered Vietnamese Chicken with lemongrass. The dish was ordered mild and arrived the way we expected mild to be. Good show. The chicken was moist and tender cooked just right. The dish had a slight wok hay flavor. Yummy. The salt level was just right, balanced out by the rice. This dish was worth the $8.

Digression. I normally keep comments limited to food but I saw something that I believe reflects our society's decline. I was standing outside on Nicollet Ave observing people. A girl maybe in her mid twenties at most was nibbling away at food and slowly jaywalking at a 30 degree angle across Nicollet Ave as if she were queen of the road. A car approached. The driver had to apply the brakes, and honked the horn. The gal instead of speeding up turned and glared at the driver and yelled "You Bitch!" plus a few other things I didn't catch. She's violating the law and yet she feels her rights are being violated? My right to do anything I want comes before anybody? Yeah, Minnesota Nice at its best...


Bottom line: Both Caravelle and Pho 79 make my day.

Caravelle
2529 Nicollet Ave
Minneapolis

JJ Fish & Chicken - Maplewood

Updated Sept 24, 2009 - CLOSED

I drove by and noticed JJ Fish in Maplewood is no more. There is a JJ Fish on University Ave in St Paul.


I wish the TC had places like JJ Fish & Chicken at every street corner, not to say that JJ is located on a corner. It's the concept of a small unpretentious old school eatery that sells good street food at good prices.

Gyro Combo. The TC has many burger joints and not enough gyros joints so I'm glad that one more can be added to the count. The gyro is on par with what I've had at other places in the TC. It's my way of saying if you've had one gyro in the TC, you've had them all -please prove me wrong. However at $5 bucks for a gyro, fries, and pop combo, this may be the cheapest and best gyro deal in the TC. So now I can get my gyro fix with the least amount of drive and dollars shelled out.

Fish Combo. Despite fish being prominent in the restaurant name, the fish was the least outstanding of the food we ordered. The fish came out mouth burning hot but the batter was heavy, the amount of fish left wanting, and overall too salty. The fries were crispy and perfectly seasoned.


The TC has a severe dearth of good Philly Cheesesteak joints, which is surprising considering the taste coincides with Midwest palate tastes. Come to think of it, I don't know of any place in the TC that's known for its Philly cheesesteak. Not having eaten the real deal, Pat's or Geno's Philly, I can only compare against what I've had before. The best I've had was in Phoenix made by a former east coaster. JJ's compares favorably but I was a little put off by the roll which had like an egg washed shiny exterior. The taste and texture of the roll didn't synergize with the otherwise excellent filling.

Bottom Line: I like this place. The food isn't awesome but it is good with prices to match. The $5-$6 bucks per combo prices are better than most in the TC but still don't match the bargains in other big cities. If I'm in the Maplewood Mall area, this is the first place I'd stop in for lunch.

3094 White Bear Ave N
Maplewood, MN

Falafel King - Minneapolis

Where do I start? You put your order in at the counter. The cashier says he will bring you the food. You see the food is for the most part prepared and sitting in trays behind the glass, ready to be scooped. Typical of a place that serves gyros, there are two rotisseries with meat ready to be shaved off. So you think it's going to take but a moment, especially when there's only a few customers.

We grab a table and we sit there for about 7 minutes and we're thinking it's already too long. So we go up to the counter and watch for a few minutes. We see food being scooped out and it's looking good. We believe it's ours, watching the server/preparer place the items enticingly on the plate. Except that it's not. The cashier takes the plates and gives it to the table next to where we seated ourselves. He comes back as we continue to watch the server/preparer work on the next order, believing its ours. We watch for a few more minutes as the server/preparer seems flustered by our presence. The cashier tells us he'll bring our food to us so we return to our table.

I don't intend to eavesdrop but I'm listening to determine if they talk about the food. They're slowly picking at the food without enthusiasm. They make small talk and they seem to just going through the motion of eating, doing it for the sake of filling their stomachs rather than for enjoyment.

Another set of customers have ordered and sit at the table to our right. Tick tock, tick tock, sounds the clock. Scrooge Squared is getting impatient and she rarely does. It seems 10 minutes rolls along. These customers get their food before we do. WTF??? They sit and eat silently. I get the same feeling watching them as I do watching the customers to our left. They eat because they paid for it and damn if they don't seem to have the same joyless expressions and body language as the other customers. They aren't saying anything about the food.

So our food finally arrives maybe another 10 minutes after this. I really don't know if that's right or not but every passing minute seemed longer than the next. This better be worth the wait and the cost. See the platter above? A penny short of ten bucks. Falafel, hummus, baba ghanoush, salad, salad and fries. In the background with a third of a plate shown is a gyro for $8.

The falafel is hard on the outside. The inside is pistachio green and more dry than moist. It's mildly flavorful and I'm ashamed to share it after telling Scrooge Squared how much I liked falafel. It's lukewarm at best. Grade: C- because after making me wait that long, it should have be mouth burning hot. Hummus: It tastes thin and lacks complexity. Grade: C. Baba Ghanoush was probably the best thing on the plate. Grade: B-. Fries: Grade C.

I grabbed a slice of the gyro meat. Not bad but relatively speaking, this is the lowest grade gyro I've had in the TC area. Grade: C.

Bottom line: Grade C isn't terrible but I expect at least Grade B food when I eat out. As far as the service goes, it gets a Grade D+ on a curve. If Jeff Foxworthy were here, he'd make them look into the camera and say "We're Falafel King and we're not smarter than Fifth Graders."


701 W Lake St
Minneapolis, MN

Pho 79 - Minneapolis

Pho and the Cha Gio egg rolls are like crack. Each time after I go to a Vietnamese restaurant, I swear it will be the last time I will order these foods. And each time I step into a Vietnamese restaurant, especially a new one, my body tells me its been too long since the last fix. I need a methadone equivalent to detoxify and treat my dependence on these foods.

Its a good thing I ordered both here because in Pho 79 I found another place in the TC to get the fix. As I reflect back on all the Cha Gio I've had in the TC area, my belief is that the ones served here are the best. Each restaurant has their own version and Pho 79 follows that trend of offering something that is different from the competition. In this case, theirs contains cabbage. The skin on these are done deep fried to perfection and the filling is solid but not too dense. The filling is especially heavy with carrots. Shame on me for not taking a photo but I was overcome as the the blood flowed from the brain to another anatomical part...the stomach.

I ordered the Pho 79 ($7.50). It was good in a way that I hadn't experienced before. Usually I cast aside the lime but for this occasion, I squeezed in a few drops. The first spoonful of broth tasted tart. Was it the lime or was it the broth? It was a disappointment because the broth lacked fullness and subtle pow. Yet as I continued, my mind and mouth enjoyed it more with each bite. When I finished, I found myself wanting more. The noodles were done to perfection and the tendon bits so squishy and satisfying. Usually with Pho, by the time I'm nearing completion, I'm satisfied and not wanting anymore. With Pho 79's Pho, the last bites were better than the first.


The meal started with Ha Cao steamed shrimp dumplings. These were very similar to the Chinese Ha Gow but only smaller. They had the wonderful sesame oil infused taste and at $3.95 for 10 pieces, it's a steal compared to the highway robbery the Chinese restaurants charge at dim sum.

I forget what this Combination No. 45 dish is called. I had a few forkfuls. It was decent, nothing extraordinary.












Pho 79
2529 Nicollet Ave
Minneapolis

Sun Foods Deli - St Paul

We've driven by this place many times, wondering what it was, first when it was Foodsmart and now as Sun Foods. We passed each time because Sun Foods and the strip mall it's attached appears run down, something found in a rough neighborhood. I suppose this particular parcel of Frogtown could qualify as a rough TC area neighborhood.

Curiosity may have killed the cat but curiosity also can leads to discoveries. Sun Foods is a multi-ethnic grocery store with a small deli. When I say multi-ethnic I mean Hmong, Loation, Vietnamese, African American, Somali, White, Mexican, plus a few more I'd be guessing at.

Reportedly the food is Hmong but it appears to be more pan-southeast asian. The $4.99 combo I chose consisted of Chicken Pad Thai, a seafood food side which included squid, octopus, and shrimp, and a Hmong sausage. We ordered and then went inside the small fishbowl cafeteria.

For the price, this was a very good combo. The Pad Thai wasn't a standout but it was decent and tasted something a good amateur home cook would put together. The seafood was a little cold but a very decent offering, again reflective of good home cooking. This was the first time we had tried Hmong sausage. The best way I can describe is as a mix between Chinese sausage and Western sausage but leaner. It had a courser grind of meat, didn't have globules of fat, and not as much filler as Western sausage. The sausage was different but enjoyable to the point where we bought a package in the grocery.

Whereas the combo was decent, the Pho at $4.99 was unexpectedly very good. It was close to but not the traditional Pho I had come to expect. The bowls were huge and came with large swirls of oil as well as what I believed to be little dots of red chili oil floating on top. My first thought would be that the Pho would excruciatingly spicy but it turned out not be. The broth was hot and flavorful in a moderately intense and mouth pleasing way. The noodles were cooked just to the right level. The Pho had just the right amount of thinly sliced beef and a couple of meat balls. At this price and quality, this is the best Pho value we've come across in the TC.

We also picked up a Banh-Mi sandwich. It was average, not having the freshness or zing I've come to expect.

Bottom line: Hole in a wall with great Pho. Go during the day.

Sun Foods
544 University Ave
St Paul, MN

Taste of the Nation Minneapolis

TASTE OF THE NATION MINNEAPOLIS RETURNS TO END CHILDHOOD

HUNGER IN MINNEAPOLIS AND ACROSS AMERICA

Annual Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation^® Minneapolis

to Take Place at the Graves 601 Hotel on Sunday, September 13^th

[Minneapolis, 2009] — With flavorful food and a passion for helping hungry children, Minneapolis’s hottest chefs and restaurants will gather for the annual fall event of Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation. Taste of the Nation Minneapolis will raise the critical funds needed to support the national organization’s efforts to end childhood hunger in Minneapolis and across America. This year’s event will take place on September 13, 2009 at the Graves 601 Hotel, from 5:30 to 9:00 pm.

More than fifteen of the metro area’s finest restaurants and chefs will participate in the gastronomic event including chefs from Cosmos, La Belle Vie, Restaurant Alma, Sea Change, Red Stag Supper Club, Solera, Barrio, Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, and Bradstreet Crafthouse. Guests will enjoy the city’s finest cuisine at a five-course, sit-down dinner with wine pairings prepared by one of the event chefs.

In addition to fabulous food and drinks, the event will feature both a silent and a live auction with unique items, including premium spirits packages from Brown Foreman, hotel stay with dining gift certificate packages, a fitness package with personal training sessions, and unique dining experiences, all to benefit hunger relief efforts.

“The Taste of the Nation Minneapolis event gives attendees a truly unique dining experience where they can indulge in a fabulous meal while helping put an end to childhood hunger,” said Amy Edens, Co-Chair of Taste of the Nation Minneapolis. “Having over fifteen of the Twin Cities best chefs creating multi-course dinners in the same room creates a memorable evening and a fun event for everyone.”

With 100 percent of ticket proceeds going back to fight hunger, this is a cause everyone can rally behind. This year’s proceeds will go to support hunger relief efforts in the Twin Cities by Second Harvest Heartland, Legal Aid and the Minnesota Food Share. Since its inception 20 years ago, Taste of the Nation has raised more than $70 million for organizations in the United States, Canada and abroad.

Generous support from national sponsors American Express, SYSCO Corporation and Food Network; product-level sponsors Brown-Forman and Aqua Panna; and local sponsors Graves 601 Hotel, POM Wonderful and Diamond Crystal ensures that 100 percent of ticket proceeds go to Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in America.

The statistics are staggering; over the course of a year, more than 12 million children in America will worry about when their next meal will come. That’s one in six who are at risk of hunger and who have limited or uncertain access to the nutritious foods they need to thrive. In Minneapolis alone, 22% of people live below the poverty line (vs. a national average of 18%) and nearly 1 in 10 Minnesota households are food insecure and lack access to enough food for an active, healthy life.. Taste of the Nation events such as the Minneapolis event aim to promote awareness of these issues and raise critical funds to support the most effective organizations that feed hungry children, as well as support advocates that are pursuing long-term solutions for hunger relief, both locally and nationally

“An end to childhood hunger in the United States is within reach,” said Bill Shore, Founder and Executive Director of Share Our Strength. “With all the participants in Taste of the Nation Minneapolis sharing their strengths, we are creating more resources for the greater good of the Twin Cities and our great nation.”

Individual tickets for Taste of the Nation Minneapolis start at $150 and can be purchased now by visiting www.tasteofthenation.org/minneapolis or by calling 1-877-26-Taste. Tickets can also be purchased for groups of 5-10 people who would like to sit at the same table for $200 per person. Groups of 10 that are interested in purchasing a table and also selecting their chef of choice can do so for $3,000. Anyone interested in this option is urged to act fast as chefs will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. This option has been a popular team event for some local organizations, combining business with pleasure for a great cause.

About Share Our Strength^®

Share Our Strength is a national organization working to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry. We weave together a net of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children at risk of hunger, and surround them with nutritious food where they live, learn and play. We work with the culinary industry to create engaging, pioneering programs like Taste of the Nation, Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale^®, Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline^® and Share Our Strength’s A Tasteful Pursuit^®. For more information, please visit www.strength.org.

To schedule interviews with chefs or grant recipient representatives, please call: Anna Sandquist at 651-295-2425 or Dina Goodman at 651.295.6814.

French Meadow Bakery, Minneapolis

French Meadow falls into the category of being classier than the places we usually venture to. It's a place where based upon the concept it sells you would expect to find yuppies, tree huggers, and PETA types, both customers and employees. You would expect well prepared food regardless of their location, be it their main location or a satellite center at the Lindbergh Airport.

That's what I thought. So I stopped in being my gate was only a few steps away and looked at the menu scribbled on the chalkboard. The Rachel seemed like a possibility but with my mind preoccupied, the description didn't sink in. I was more affixed on the price. Hmm. Is there anything cheap to eat at the Minneapolis airport? Will it be worth $9.99 and commensurate with the name and reputation of the French Meadow?

The Rachel was prepared on the spot. I waited patiently but my rumbling stomach didn't. I was pleasantly surprised by the heaping mound I saw on the plate handed to me. It would definitely fill the stomach. With the first bite, there was no doubt that French Meadow used better than average ingredients and were generous with the ingredients. That's the positives.

The negatives: Even Scrooge Squared with her limited cooking abilities could have prepared this. The rye bread was only toasted. The filling was slapped between the two slices of toast and the cheese was given just enough heat time to provide the slightest adhesion to the turkey. Maybe I have the concept wrong but Rachels and Rubens just aren't if they aren't butter grilled, finger burning hot, and the filling a wonderful gooey mess.

It was a $5 sandwich at best. Maybe their main location prepares food better.


French Meadow Bakery
Minneapolis-St Paul Airport

Tinucci's - Newport, MN

August 13, 2009 - Revisit

Tinnucci's continues its consistent string of excellent food. It's been awhile since I've been here and today I ordered a turkey sandwich. It was the best turkey sandwich I've ever had much like the pork sandwich I described in the earlier review below.

The oblong roasted turkey breast roll sits on a cutting board block awaiting to be carved. Generally I don't like turkey breast because its dry but I wanted to eat a little healthier today. The man behind the counter cut 4 quarter inch thick slices and piled them on the requested onion bun. Sitting down, I looked at it and thought about how I was going to choke down a dry sandwich. That first bite reminded me that Tinnucci's always served good turkey but today's turkey was simply world class flavorful and juicy. If I could roast a turkey as good as this, I'd have turkey weekly.

Tinucci's probably will never be the darling of today's "sophisticated" food critics especially as it's long established. For me, it's a jewel and there's reason to believe it will be so for a long time.


February 16, 2008 - Revisit

I suppose being in operation so long, celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, gives them plenty of time to perfect certain offerings.

One offering that has been consistent is their Roast Pork Loin (sandwich, $5.95), a Friday staple. Theirs is a simple offering of a three 3/16 in. thick slices on a choice of white, wheat, or onion buns, choice of condiment, a bag of chips, and a pickle wedge. On the surface, all this appears mundane.

I've eaten a lot of roast pork in restaurants and I've bought many marinated roast pork for home cooking but never have I had pork this tender, moist, flavorful, and texturally satisfying. Their secret must be in selecting the cut with just the right amount of fat and marbling, maybe breed (Berkshire? Wishful thinking on my part?) and then slow roasting it to at the proper temperature for the right amount of time. Whatever they did brought out the best of the simple and singular flavor of pork.

Every time I've had this sandwich, it has been very good to excellent but on this occasion, it was like a taste of heaven (at least I hope that's one taste of heaven). The only regret was that the sandwich was gone all too quick.


December 20, 2007

The saying goes the three most important things about a fast food joint is location, location, location. Tinucci's, if it were fast food, wouldn't stand a chance of surviving in nowhere Newport. Fortunately, Tinucci's serves some of the best food in the neighborhood, offering a plethora of Italian and American foods more traditional than innovative.

I usually go for their daily special which is a sandwich with a bag of chips ($5.95) or dinner with two sides ($8.95). The slow cooked medium rare beef on Tuesday and turkey on Thursdays are notable for being juicy, flavorful, and tender. On Friday, the special is their Famous Fish (fried). While the fish is good, there is nothing that sets it apart from fried fish elsewhere.

Singling out what Tinucci's does best is a no-brainer for me: chicken. My favorite items are the fried chicken, Caesar salad with rotisserie chicken ($7.50), and chicken salad (side dish). The fried chicken is moist with flavor soaked down to the bone. The slightly charred flavor of the rotisserie chicken balances the tartness in the Caesar salad. The chicken salad is simply world class. I could eat a pint of it without a second thought.

Any misses? The Reuben. It seems a Reuben should be easy to make but my experience is that it is more often wrong than right. The Reuben here reinforces that experience.

Tinucci's
396 21st St
Newport, MN
651.459.3211

Himalayan Restaurant - Minneapolis

We have a reader to thank for dropping us a line on this restaurant. We're always interested in trying different foods and we've never had Nepalese cuisine before.

Himalayan is an order of the menu restaurant that happens to also offer a noon buffet. We stopped in for lunch as a buffet is what the doctor prescribes to sample as many dishes possible. With that said, the buffet selection was quite small, no more than about a dozen offerings.

I was stumped. All the food because of its appearance, names, and/or taste reminded me of Indian food. If you told me it was Indian food, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. So was I eating Nepalese or Indian food?

Pyaazi - onion and jalapenos battered and deep fried. Not as spicy as I expected

Basmati rice - nice and fluffy.

Kwati - Eight bean soup. Excellent. Tied with the Choyala as my favorite.

Chicken Choyala - cooked in a Tandoor with what they call Kathmandu style herbs. It had a nice "grilled" taste with an equally nice spicy kick.

Tofu Aaloo - with potatoes and spices. Kind of bland

Chicken Tikki Masala - isn't this classic Indian food? Creamy but on the bland side.

Mustard greens - no matter how you cook it, it still has that compelling bitter taste.

Kheer - rice pudding that had just the right texture and sweetness.

After we'd get our food, the attendant would put the covers back over the trays. While it may be for the intention of keeping the food hot, it was sending the message "John Pinettes are not welcome here".

Bottom Line: I like Himalayan Restaurants - the food, the service, the layout, the way it's run, the way they care about making it a success. Comparing it against Indian food, our taste buds say Himalayan does it better than others we've tried in the TC. Nonetheless given a choice of eating whatever ethnic food I wanted, Indian food isn't near the top, meaning Nepalese food isn't near the top. As such Himalayan falls into the category of infrequent restaurant stops for us.

2401 E. Franklin Ave
Minneapolis, MN

Royal Buffet - New Hope

If Buffet is prefixed by words as Golden, Grand, Kingdom, or Crown, what thought pops up? It's a Chinese buffet. So what is Royal Buffet? Yes, a Chinese buffet! However unlike any other Chinese buffet in the TC, it's different in that it offers dim sum. On this visit there were about 20 different dim sum items including daikon cakes, egg tarts, siu mai, beef tripe daikon stew, chicken feet, sticky rice in lotus leaf, shrimp balls, beef chow fun, cha siu so, chung fun plus a few that I don't know what they're called.

Some of it was good such as the beef chow fun and the shrimp balls, some average as the beef tripe diakon , and some below par like the egg tart and cha siu so. Don't expect the quality you would get in a dedicated dim sum eatery. But then again what do you expect for about $12 including premium offerings such as crab legs, crawfish, and 35 count shrimp as well as the standard Chinese offerings? The crawfish was done fairly well. I didn't try any of the standard Chinese offerings so I'm unable to comment.

The place was packed around noon. Lot's of traffic and families. The food overall may not have been spectular but for $12 and especially for the dim sum offering, I say this is a tremendous value. The only thing holding us back from making frequent visits is the driving distance.

7112 Bass Lake Rd
New Hope, MN