Walter James opened the Nankin Cafe of Minneapolis in 1919. Before the Chinese restaurant’s arrival on 7th Street, many a Minneapolitan had never heard of chow mein. That particular dish would become the Nankin’s specialty, known far beyond the borders of the state.
It’s remarkable, by restaurant standards, that it lasted nearly 80 years, helping to define Chinese American cuisine in the process. While you can still find recipe threads devoted to its house chow mein and the famous Wanderer’s Punch, that’s not the only lasting impact of this cultural pioneer.
The space that James created, with its gilded staircases and hanging lanterns, wasn’t just a temple to Asian food; it was a meaningful haven for the Minnesota Chinese community. Generations of immigrants passed through its kitchens, learning the skills that would propel them to open their own businesses. James used the Nankin’s clubrooms to create spaces for new families to socialize. Once the gatherings gained legendary status and outgrew the restaurant, he welcomed people to his farmstead on Howard Lake. He gave generously and founded the Chinese American Association of Minnesota. There is little doubt that this one man’s openness and drive to create connection have impacted how we eat today.
It’s a reminder that Asian food isn’t just about food; it’s about the people who make it, who honor it, who offer it as an invitation to connect. Having soup dumplings is not the only thing that makes our food town special; it’s also having cooks and families who can build generational wealth and influence our shared culture as we all grow together, deliciously.
Think about that as you graciously slurp noodles or tuck into an egg roll. We wanted to celebrate our East Asian food makers here—we’ll have to dig into the Asian dishes of Indian, Nepalese, and other cuisines next time. —S.M.
How to Build Ramen
John Ng and Lina Goh—the dynamic duo behind Ramen Fest, Zen Box Izakaya, and now Ramen Shoten—are kind of noodle heads. They’ve traveled to Japan and befriended some of the biggest names in ramen culture around the world. When Ng is thinking about creating a special ramen, he goes to his sketchbook and works it out on paper before it hits a bowl because, as we know, you eat with your eyes before you ever dip in your chopsticks.
More Noodles to Pull
Other spots to try:
Quang » The pho here is the yardstick against which many others are measured. The pho tai bo vien with beef and meatballs is as close to Minnesota iconic as pho gets. Eat Street, Mpls.
Master Noodle » It’s not just a ramen town. The Mongolian beef fried noodles feature those toothsome hand-pulled beauties alongside the steak and peppers in your bowl. University Ave., St. Paul
Tori Ramen » You always get the Bali, because the tahini and poached egg are the right boost to these handmade noodles, but one of these times, try the K-Pop, with American cheese melted into the broth. Mpls. and St. Paul locations
Local Asian Markets: Three Things to Get
You don’t need a game plan to peruse an Asian market; you just need time. And sustenance. Grab a snack and shop for ingredients to level up your house ramen or dumpling game.
Dragon Star Supermarket
One of the largest East Asian markets in town, find one in St. Paul and a second location in Brooklyn Park. 633 Minnehaha Ave. W., St. Paul; 8020 Brooklyn Blvd., Brooklyn Park
United Noodles
For more than 40 years, this family-run market has been feeding Minneapolis, and now Woodbury too. unitednoodles.com
Hmong Village
The sprawling market near the capitol in St. Paul is worth a summer stroll when the stalls are packed with produce from local farmers. 1001 Johnson Pkwy., St. Paul
How to Hot Pot
Megan Yuen and Dave Ostlund are the married couple who first introduced me to hot pot, in their home. In the days just before they were headed to China to visit their family and eat more hot pot than I could imagine, I took them out for restaurant hot pot to see how it measured up. Over the course of a meal at Asia Mall’s Hot Pot City restaurant, I managed to pull the following advice from these two eaters.
1) The best hot pot is a communal hot pot. Some places will give you your own broth, but it’s best when everyone is adding to a big vat in the middle. It’s about fishing something out of the broth and putting it on your neighbor’s plate—sharing and giving.
2) Hot pot isn’t about making one soup; it’s about cooking lots of little things in broth and then eating them in whatever combination feels right. This time you dip fatty lamb and fish out some spinach, next time you take a bit of the lobster with a hunk of tofu skin.
3) Order things that you’ve never tried. This is your time to try tripe, maybe. Dip it in the broth and let it cook. If you don’t like it, move on to the next combination.
4) Fish tofu is great.
5) It’s best to have a sauce bar so everyone can create individual mixes. Some people like spicier sauce than others—this is a personal moment for you.
6) General rule: If something is cooking in a basket or a ladle, that’s not up for grabs. But anything cooking willy-nilly in the broth is fair game for chopsticks.
More Hot, More Pot
Three spots to try:
Hot Pot City » This one gets bonus points for the big round tables to seat all your friends and a make-your-own-sauce bar for a more custom bowl. Asia Mall, Eden Prairie
Little Szechuan Hot Pot » Offering a huge menu of items from which to pick—from fish tofu to Japanese pumpkin—Little Szechuan will also pack it all up to go. University Ave., St. Paul
Jasmine 26 » The Vietnamese icon, which just converted to hot pot, now offers smaller double-walled pots on induction burners. Eat Street, Mpls.
Three Banh Mi to Rank on Your Own Time
A classic banh mi is the French Vietnamese mash-up that classically takes a baguette and layers on pork paté, then cilantro, cucumber, pickled carrots, daikon, jalapeños, green onions, probably more pork, and then a custom flourish from the maker.
Lu’s Sandwiches
The Vietnamese-style sausage banh mi is the move at any of the three locations. Eat Street, Northeast, and U of M, Mpls.
iPho by Saigon
The Banh Mi Sai Gon special here is a meat fest with red roast pork, pork loaf, grilled pork, meatballs, and paté. Several metro locations
Pho Mai
Dinkytown’s favorite grab-and-go spot isn’t afraid to play around a bit: Try the banh mi op la with sunny-side-up eggs. Three metro locations
Wok Star
What is Tammy Wong, one of the most important chefs in the Twin Cities for nearly four decades, up to now? By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl
If you’re a longtime restaurant lover in the Twin Cities, you may think you know Rainbow owner Tammy Wong. After all, since 1987, she’s been harnessing fire and charming guests at her Eat Street Chinese anchor, which just reopened after a lengthy pandemic-driven closure. She’s also a staple of the Minneapolis Farmers Market on Lyndale with her famous egg rolls. But did you know that over the last decade, she’s been reinventing her food, inspired by her deep family history?
I thought I knew Tammy Wong, but I only came to understand the extent of her reinvention after chatting with her over the course of a month. Hearing all she’s been up to, I suggested: “I think you have been turning yourself into the Alice Waters of Chinese food in America, but no one knows it. Does that sound about right?”
“Alice Waters?” echoed Wong, turning from her roaring stove fitted with woks the size of washtubs and woks the size of dinner plates and woks of ordinary size, all clustered beneath a vent hood with an updraft as powerful as a summer storm. She tipped curried cauliflower onto a plate, shook her head, and replied, “I wish. Alice Waters has a team. I am all alone.”
True enough. Alice Waters, the pioneer of farm-to-table and California cuisine, does have a team, and when I popped in just before Rainbow reopened, Tammy Wong was literally alone. This was in part because Pancho and Pepe, cooks who have been at her side since the 1990s, were just walking out as I was walking in. The three had spent the morning around a steel table, rolling about a million egg rolls, just as they have on, let’s guesstimate, 10,000 other days? One measure of the worth of chefs is the loyalty they inspire in their cooks—Francisco “Pancho” Penafort and Jose “Pepe” Cantoran are loyal as the sky.
Watching Wong conduct her custom inferno of flame, her soft chestnut hair looped back in a ponytail, I was suddenly mindful of how chefs have, over the years, confessed their envy of this cooking line Wong built for herself when she moved her restaurant across the street from the old strip mall location in 1997. But it took this moment of blackening cauliflower for me to truly understand. Flame like a blacksmith’s forge, heat like a volcano. A serious tool for a serious chef.
Serious like Alice Waters? Waters came up because Wong had been telling me about her recent food evolutions. Did I know she had invented a way to make a food-coloring-free sweet-and-sour sauce? I did not. She starts with squash and carrot puree, then builds up flavors that are perfectly sweet and sour, tangy and bright, and offer the eye-catching glamour-glaze of sweet-and-sour sauce but with the health-giving power of vegetables.
Wong also told me about the young daylilies and herb sprouts she’d foraged from her community garden plot. Young daylilies taste like their botanical cousin the onion, explained Wong, and vegetable gardening is now such a passion of hers that she knows exactly what is coming up where in her garden, even when every plant still has those baby cotyledon leaves.
She also shared how on Saturdays and Sundays, she arrives at the Minneapolis Farmers Market on Lyndale at dawn to run her Rainbow booth, but before she sets up, she prowls the aisles to buy the best of the best to save for her restaurant service. Then she sets out her strawberry-rhubarb lemonade and famous egg rolls.
Why are these egg rolls so famous? Because they’re so very fat and healthy and counterintuitively tender. Cut one crosswise to find what looks like a whole head’s worth of minutely shredded cabbage, studded with the finest julienne of carrots, a little bit of chicken (so they’re perfect for her kosher and halal customers), and enough glass noodles to hold it all together. Wong has developed a multistep process, using a special wrapper, that allows her to pack her egg rolls with cabbage but then cook them so that oil can’t enter the tightly folded vegetable chamber. This allows her to “melt” the cabbage using exterior heat. That’s why they’re so tender. That’s why you want to gobble them up like candy.
Wong ruefully told me tales of other chefs in town who want to know what machine she uses for her egg rolls and dumplings—no machines. What she does machines can’t do. What she does takes a lifetime, a lifetime with a surprising mid-career refocus.
Do you know the Wong family story? Serious eaters in the Twin Cities should know it. It started in China, in Guangdong Province, then called Canton, where Tammy Wong’s ancestors had been living and eating for many generations. The upheavals of World War II, the Communist Party’s Great Leap Forward, and famine led Wong’s family to flee to Saigon, later called Ho Chi Minh City. That’s where Tammy Wong was born in 1963, and where her grandmother began selling vegetables and tamarind candies at the local market, with young Tammy helping roll and package the candy. In 1975, soon after America’s exit from Vietnam, the Wong family made it to a refugee camp in Hong Kong.
The promise of Minnesota peeked over the horizon when Walter Mondale visited her refugee camp in 1979. Little could the then vice president have known that one of the child refugees, who was working her childhood away assembling Hot Wheels cars in a factory she reached by bus, would someday be his favorite chef, make his annual birthday treat of Chilean sea bass with black bean sauce, and cook for him at his 90th birthday party, where she’d get her picture taken with him and America’s beloved one-term president Jimmy Carter. But that’s jumping ahead.
First, in 1979, the Wong family hopped to New York City, where Tammy Wong scored a new childhood factory job sewing and was delighted to find herself smack-dab in a new world of fellow Chinese teenagers. “I had a lot of friends. We’d go to Canal Jean, sift through the bins outside looking for just the right clothes, and grab something to eat,” she recalled. “Everyone [on the factory floor] would talk about, This place in Chinatown has the best bao; that one has the best particular sort of noodles. It was a very foodie culture, though we didn’t have that word.”
The family relocated to Minneapolis in 1983, finding a house not 10 blocks from Rainbow today, from which the nine Wong siblings fanned out, finding whatever jobs they could, many in food. Tammy Wong enrolled in Southwest High School and got jobs in various local Chinese restaurants, like Kowloon, Village Wok, and Great Wall, where she drew attention as she skillfully spoke English with the customers while writing Chinese on restaurant tickets for the chefs. After a few years, Wong’s father had the idea that the whole family should stop juggling jobs at other businesses and pull together to work at a single-family restaurant. In 1987, Rainbow opened in the strip mall across the street from its current location. Because she was responsible, English-proficient, and the eldest daughter, Tammy Wong dealt with all the restaurant paperwork and started to teach herself to cook at restaurant scale.
She became a very good restaurant chef in short order. In the 1990s, Rainbow was the leading, most important Chinese restaurant in town—with lines of customers to prove it. Diners watched the Wong siblings hustle and cook and transform Minnesota food culture, as they still do today. Daisy Wong is part of the group running the two Shuang Hur markets, with their phenomenal Chinese barbecue counters. Nina Wong is the force behind Chin Dian, the Chinese-Indian spot that reflects her culinary interests after she married a man from the Indian subcontinent. Tracy Wong runs My Huong Kitchen, a delightful Vietnamese spot across from Rainbow that just completed a big dining room renovation. The other Wong siblings return to Rainbow to help when things become hectic, or glorious—like when Wong cooked a $500-a-plate dinner inside Mia celebrating its Chinese bronzes.
“Rolling those tamarind candies with my grandmother. The vegetables. The farmers. Growing. Selling-vegetables lady. This is me, too.”
—Tammy Wong
Yet one day, after 20 years at the top of Rainbow, everything suddenly changed for Wong. She recalls it as a moment rooted in Saigon and her grandmother, who the Chinese expat community called something that roughly translates to “selling-vegetables lady.” Wong had been so busy cooking and running her restaurant, she didn’t have time to think about vegetables beyond the delivery truck at the back door. “When the Minneapolis Farmers Market first reached out to me, they wanted me to teach a class,” she recalled. “I thought, OK, that’s good marketing. But when I got down there, I had this feeling: Rolling those tamarind candies with my grandmother. The vegetables. The farmers. Growing. Selling-vegetables lady. This is me, too.”
Inspired, she took over an abandoned double plot in a Whittier community garden and started growing some of her own vegetables and herbs. It gave her such a sense of connection to the other growers, to the rhythm of market and food itself, that in 2014, she debuted her own Rainbow farmers’ market booth. The “it girl” chef of Minneapolis Chinese food of the 1990s also started reverse engineering her menu to make it healthier, more grower-oriented, more what she saw in her chef mind’s eye, the food her market-oriented, vegetable-focused grandmother would love.
The famous Rainbow Szechuan wontons, essentially a Tammy Wong reinvention of her family’s Guangdong-style wontons in a Szechuan red chili oil, got pared down and became a little more complex with fermented black beans. Turnip cakes were always handmade, with hand-grated turnips, but now they’re served with a bright tangle of farmers’ market green onions and eggs.
When Wong handed me chopsticks for that cauliflower—that charred, blistered, curried, magnificent cauliflower—she remarked that I really needed to come back in the cauliflower season to get all the purple and yellow heirloom varieties together on one plate. “All the vegan and gluten-free people, they come for miles for my cauliflower,” explained Wong. “And the brussels sprouts. We sell so many brussels sprouts.”
In the end, she said, “when I think about my whole life as a chef, it’s so many things—I don’t know how you can put all of it in a story. The first thing I learned to cook was boiled water. This sounds easy. This wasn’t easy in Vietnam. You had to cut firewood into kindling, use a ceramic burner. Don’t cut yourself or burn yourself. You’re 6 years old. Then I cook for everybody: I cook for Mr. Mondale, Josh Hartnett, and Jane Goodall.” (Goodall and Hartnett both were crazy for Wong’s mixed vegetables with tofu and black bean sauce.)
“For some people, I’m just the farmers’ market lady with the lemonade who makes their kids happy so they can shop. For some people, they’ve been coming to me their whole lives, but they don’t even know I plant all the flower boxes outside so people have a good feeling coming in the doors. You say Alice Waters. What’s the difference between me and Alice Waters? I think she has better publicity. She has a better story.”
Alice Waters might have better publicity, but I’ll offer this: In no world or way does she have a better story.
What’s Your Dumpling?
Nearly every culture has a dumpling, from pierogi to ravioli to gyoza, but we’re partial to the kind that roll with chili oil and chopsticks. We’re blessed with a high-level dumpling game in town, so it seems appropriate that it’s hard to choose a favorite. Think of this as a field guide to dumplings in the wild.
Extra Kimchi, Please!
Where to get your ferment on:
Juche » Trust Me sandwich: butter-fried kimchi and peanut butter on toasted white bread. Payne-Phalen, St. Paul
Kimchi Tofu House » Kimchi ramen: noodles, kimchi, onions, carrots, green onions, mushrooms, and an egg. U of M, Mpls.
Young Joni » Kimchi hummus: sesame, baechu kimchi, scallion, hearth-baked pita. Northeast, Mpls.
Three Sushi Innovations You Can’t Ignore
Raw fish is the just the beginning.
Sushi Sandwiches at Sushi Dori
The sushi bar at Eat Street Crossing pays homage to the onigirazu tradition with the sushi sando. Spam, dashi egg, wonton chips, shrimp tempura, and spicy tuna all find their way in. Eat Street, Mpls.
Negitoro Hand Roll at Billy Sushi
The loose interpretation of a roll first showed up as a seaweed cone, but the newest innovators treat it almost like a nori taco. This off-menu one is topped with negitoro (luxe fatty tuna), sturgeon caviar, and a little 24k bling. Because: Billy. North Loop, Mpls.
A5 Wagyu Nigiri at Mizu
Proving it’s not all a fish game, this improvised roll takes the most prized, unctuous beef in the world and gives it a quick flame sear to warm up the fats. Eat it on a perfect bite of rice, and you won’t blink at the premium price. White Bear Lake
Pho Obsessed?
Three Vietnamese dishes to try when you’re ready to eat beyond your standard pho’ order. By Macy-Chau Diem Tran
Hoa Bien’s Bánh Hoi Chao Tôm »
Bánh h?i are thin vermicelli rice noodles steamed and cut into small, rectangular mats and topped with green scallion oil and crunchy fried shallots and pork rinds. They are traditionally eaten on special occasions, such as weddings or death anniversaries. Ch?o tôm is seasoned ground shrimp wrapped around a sugarcane stalk and grilled or panfried. The sugarcane lends an earthy sweetness to the ground shrimp and helps to retain the shrimp’s moisture as it is cooked. The caramelization on the outside of the ch?o tôm provides a soft, smoky exterior to bite into. This dish can be eaten with or without rice paper. The server at Hoa Bien brought out a huge platter piled high with leafy greens and fresh herbs, and I opted for just using salad leaves. (The sugarcane is not eaten, so remove it before you start wrapping!) Using a plate or the palm of your hand, lay down the salad leaf first, then layer it with bánh h?i, ch?o tôm, and your choice of herbs. Although this dish could technically be eaten by one person, it is a much more joyful eating experience when shared with family and friends. Roll, dip in fish sauce, and enjoy!
Caravelle/Pho 79’s Cá Kho Tô »
Cá kho t?, braised, caramelized catfish, was a staple dish in my household. It is traditionally cooked in a clay pot, which helps to circulate the heat evenly and capture the natural oils and aroma from the fish. My family believes the strong flavors and slender fish bones might be too much for those unaccustomed to it, but I’m not discouraged. If more Americans know about it, I am confident the deliciousness of cá kho t? will win hearts. When the first bite of tender, fall-off-the-bone catfish melts in my mouth, the richness wakes up all my taste buds. Dark soy sauce and caramelized sugar give the braised fish a deep brown color while also imparting subtle sweetness. Balanced with fish sauce, which adds both salty and umami, Pho 79’s cá kho t? packs flavor into every bite. Warmth permeates this dish with notes of black pepper. It comes with white rice, which is a necessary complement—eat the fish on its own, and it is too salty and fatty. The rice perfectly soaks up the tangy braising liquid. Though I was full after two bowls of rice, this cá kho t?’s dance of flavors and textures kept me coming back for more.
MT Noodles’ Bánh Khot »
If you’ve ever heard of bánh xèo (a Vietnamese savory crêpe), there is a lesser-known sister dish called bánh kh?t. Although made with similar ingredients, they take entirely different forms. Whereas bánh xèo is large and flat and considered a meal, bánh kh?t is a street food snack shaped in mini muffin tin–like cast-iron cups. It is made with a creamy, lightly sweet coconut milk and rice flour batter. MT Noodles has mastered the perfect bánh kh?t texture—crispy on the outside (enough to hear a crunch as you bite into it), with a soft interior that melts in your mouth. These delicate golden cups are stuffed with savory shrimp and dipped in fish sauce to counterbalance the richness of the coconut cream. For an extra textural and flavor component, MT Noodles serves its bánh kh?t with pickled carrots and daikon, allowing for layers of brightness and acidity to come together for a well-rounded flavor. To this day, despite living in Viet Nam and traveling extensively across the country, I have yet to find bánh kh?t that delivers the same satisfaction as that of MT Noodles.
Three Condiments That Will Change Your Life
Never support the myth that most Minnesotans think ketchup is spicy.
Jeow at Khâluna and Gai Noi
These Laotian sauces are basically like chili-boosted, fermented salsas. You have permission to use your hands to dip sticky rice in there, or add some to your Thai basil chicken wings or shrimp rolls.
Kua Txob at Union Hmong Kitchen
Pronounced “kuwah tsaw,” kua txob basically means “hot sauce” in Hmong. This hot pepper sauce could boost a UHK whole fried fish, but it’s already on the side with your pork belly.
Coconut Chili Crisp at Hai Hai
The trendiest condiment gets a tropical hit in this little spice pot. All the crunch of dried chili, plus crispy garlic and onions, and then a breeze from coconut oil.
Band of Brothers
When your “family”-run business grows from a pack of cooks. By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl
Is Abang Yoli a Korean fried chicken counter? Order the sweet potatoes from the Nicollet location—where most everyone is rushing in for a takeout bag of chicken—and everything you thought you knew about a Korean fried chicken counter is suddenly up for grabs. These potatoes! Purple boats fording through a churning sea of fried Thai basil leaves and fresh mint, white waves of sesame aioli, frothy crests of toasted coconut shreds, burgundy-colored pools of house-made chili crunch, amid scarlet hoops of pickled Fresno chili. Stick in a fork to retrieve a robust charred sweetness, a lush bit of sauce, pricking bits of crackle, contrasting flavors and styles of fresh herb, a little prickle of pickle.
What is happening at this fried chicken counter? Chef Jamie Yoo is what’s happening. Abang Yoli is the first solo project of this rising star, now 29. Fifteen years ago, in Seattle, Yoo was fresh from South Korea, relocated by his dad, who was following a tech job. Yoo, with little English and no friends, was not happy. Self-conscious, lonely, shy, he skipped classes to hide in the school library and read Alain Ducasse and Joël Robuchon cookbooks. “I think at first I just thought, Books with pictures,” recalls Yoo. “But soon I was so impressed with how much effort they put into their plates. It wasn’t just food; it was art. Eventually I asked my dad, ‘Can I get into this industry? I’m not a bad kid, just really quiet, not that good about studying, and I get really stressed about testing.’ I was surprised my parents were just happy I found something I wanted to do.”
Yoo enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America. His reputation for hard work got him stages at a few of the country’s most elite restaurants, like Dominique Crenn’s Atelier Crenn, where Yoo remembers putting in two hours picking and cleaning individual asparagus tips.
But the first elite restaurant where he spent his own money? New York City’s Jungsik, the Michelin-starred Korean restaurant with a high-profile second location in Seoul. “All the proteins were literally melting in my mouth. The fish was so perfectly cooked. I thought, You can do Korean food in this culinarily artistic way? Wow. Korean food for me had been like, I’m helping my mom slice five cases of napa cabbage for kimchi; now I have to slice 80 pounds of daikon by hand—this is not art. At Jungsik, I thought, OK, but actually, it is.”
Yoo cooked at San Francisco’s high-volume Gary Danko and a couple other high-profile spots in Seattle before he got a phone call from Gavin Kaysen’s key chef Nick Dugan. Would he be interested in helping open a new French restaurant called Bellecour? “First of all, I don’t even know—where is Minneapolis?” recalls Yoo. “I’m having a good time in Seattle. My parents are here; the weather is great. What is Wayzata? It sounds sketchy.”
Once it opened, Bellecour was pure French bliss. Behind the scenes, the cooking staff was turning into a sort of Band of Brothers with good knives—Jordan Bach, Lukas Freund, Vili Branyik, Thomas Yang (son of pastry legend Diane Moua), and Jamie Yoo supported and pushed each other—in other words, became besties.
Then the pandemic wiped out Bellecour as a full-service French restaurant, and Yoo was without a high-profile kitchen gig for the first time in his adult life. To cope, he started making his mom’s kimchi in his apartment for comfort. “I was panicking,” he recalls. “What’s my plan B?” Could chicken be the answer? “In Korea, when I was young, we lived in a little town, and there were at least 15 Korean fried chicken places—way more than McDonald’s. I thought, Well, it’s the time of takeout. This is not the kind of food I want to cook, but maybe it can get us there.” For three months, he ate fried chicken while he tried to figure out a good recipe.
He found it. Diane Moua knew the folks at Malcolm Yards and secured Yoo a cooking tryout. Yoo knew exactly what he wanted to do: Abang means “brothers”; yoli means “cuisine.” The band of Bellecour besties would tap their culinary art and build their next thing together.
If you’ve never had Abang Yoli’s fried chicken, drop everything. It’s tender, crisp, light, so very flavorful. Yoo eventually devised a four-hour brine with toasted coriander seeds, lemongrass, and rice wine vinegar, followed by a coating of whole-wheat flour batter that’s somehow light with a hearty, biscuity flavor. Yoo knows what people want. The boneless chicken quarters he serves are huge. When he puts one inside a sturdy custom-made Vikings and Goddesses Pie Company bun, the chicken gaps over the sides and gives you two chicken experiences: that of perfect fried chicken and, once you get to the middle, a sandwich with paper-thin pickles, lively kimchi, and that lush sesame aioli. It’s that thing we all want now: five-star technique that’s casual enough to grab for a lake picnic.
Today, there are two Abang Yolis. The Nicollet one has a slightly bigger menu to go with the larger kitchen. You’ll find Bellecour veterans behind the counter, making the city’s best ssam plates with perfectly tender proteins like grilled short ribs beside beautiful house-made kimchis. You’ll encounter gorgeous four-dollar bao and those unbelievable sweet potatoes. Yoo has plans for more Abang Yolis and a fancy Minnesota Korean restaurant one day, too.
His success reminds me of that saying: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In Minneapolis, we should amend it to: “If you want to go far, be sure to go with the people who seriously know how to cook for a picnic.”
How To Treat Yourself
The highest compliment one can give an Asian dessert is: “It’s not too sweet!” That doesn’t mean that it can’t come with panda ears or throw a purple wink your way; that level of sweetness is almost required. The desserts we gathered from around town hit that golden mean: beautiful to the eye without being a sugar bomb to the mouth.
Find Your Favorite
Plot your semisweet tasting strategy starting with these four:
Bober Tea and mochi dough » The Bui family opened this popular spot in Dinkytown.
Tous les Jours » This international French Vietnamese bakery recently opened in Richfield.
eM Que Viet » Located on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue, this is the next generation’s modern view of their family’s Que Viet Vietnamese restaurant.
Marc Heu Pâtisserie Paris » This eponymous sweet shop from our local Hmong pastry chef recently moved to Cathedral Hill in St. Paul.