Tea House - Chinese, St Paul, MN

July 13, 2008



It had been six months since our first visit. We ordered the Mongolian Lamb, Dan Dan Noodles, and Juicy Buns as we did the last time. In addition, we ordered Chung King Spicy Chicken and an order of Cold Noodle. I'm glad to report the food tasted better this time around, especially the Juicy Buns and the Dan-Dan noodles. The Lamb was excellent and had that elusive and desirable wok-hay taste. The Chicken was also good but not quite up to par with the lamb. The chicken was cut into marble sized chunks and were relatively tender. The spiciness was just right to encourage a feeding frenzy. The leftovers tasted great. The Cold Noodle won't work for the average Midwest palate. The taste was slightly peanutty with more than a hint of fermented vinegar.

Cons: The wallet wasn't as thrilled.

Chinese restaurants are notorious for there lack of service. In our earlier post, we said the service sucked here. Not today. In fact, our waitress provided the best service I've had since I've been in the Twin Cities. She wasn't a charmer or an efficient professional providing clinically cold service, but rather she provided service as if she wanted to and was glad to do so, at least that was my perception. She was fast, approachable, and was there just at the right time. To ask her for something was not an intrusion or a bother. She understood the requests without need for explanation, almost as if she were an empath. To her, I wish blessings and success.


January 29, 2008



I've read a bit of hype about this restaurant aka Tea House 2. Did it live up to it's reputation?

I put my scrooge was aside for the day and went over the $10 per entree limit. We ordered a number of dishes and they are reviewed in the order best to the least favorite.

Mongolian Lamb ($12.95). Nonspicy dish. Its the first picture above. I was expecting a hearty rough outdoorsy stew arrangement so the presentation was a jolt. After the first bite, I thought the waiter had made a mistake. It tasted and had the texture of beef - tender, velvety, and none of the lamb aftertaste - and most pleasantly surprising, came with the ever elusive at home cooking "wok breath or taste" similar with a taste reminiscent of Beef Chow Fun. Even the onions and green onions tasted great. With a few more bites, I thought I could detect the lamb aftertaste but I still couldn't shake the feeling the dish was a combination of beef and lamb. Wouldn't you know that the dish I enjoyed most also was the most costly?


Gui Chow Chicken ($10.95). A one pepper spicy dish. The dark meat chicken was tender and absorbed the sauce which was mildly spicy with a slight ketchup(?) sweet overtone. The taste wasn't exotic but it was comfortable. The bamboo shoot and cucumbers were a nice crunchy offset to the chicken.


Tea House Shanghai Mini Juicy Bun ($5.95). These are a mini version of the Xialong Bao aka Shanghai soup dumplings. The six buns were definitely mini overall and mini with its pork ball filling. The skin did remain intact which allowed us to carefully pick it up and plop it into our months and allow the hot but fortunately not scalding hot soup to fill our mouths. The buns weren't bad but I've had significantly better.


Szechuan Dan-Dan Noodles ($4.95). A beautiful presentation with a nice but not overly powerful kick that warmed the body on a cold winter day. The noodles were airy and lacked a nice bite. The dish just seemed to be missing something.


Sour Vermicelli ($4.95). A big portioned bowl. This was our least favorite dish. It was noticeably more spicy than the Dan-Dan and came with the fermented black vinegar nose crinkling odor. It's a dish that requires an acquired taste and requires a disposition willing to ignore the odor and shove in into the mouth. We wished the other dishes were as generously portioned as this.

The waiter was slow, inattentive, forgetful, mediocre at best and never put me at ease. I think he tempered how I felt about the food as well as the restaurant. There was one great dish, one very good dish, one good dish, one slightly better than OK dish, and one dish that was so-so. We did have leftovers so that was a scrooge positive.

Maybe it was the dishes we ordered but in my opinion, Tea House 2 fell slightly short of the hype. For my tastes, Little Szechuan is better.

Scrooge Rating: Drag out the wallet, screaming ouch.

1676 Suburban Ave
St Paul, MN
651.771.1790