A Yummy Restaurant Experience

[Melba's Jammin']

Some Twin Citians from rec.food.cooking and two other couples went to
dinner at Yummy on 25th and Nicollet. Awesome. On the recommendation
of Joe, our waiter, we ordered the combination dinner for 8 or 9 people,
appetizers (not part of the combination dinner) and two extra entrees.
Joe is a prince of a man. I brought him a jar of jam. :-) Pictures
and the rest of the story are on my website. Cost per person (including
tip) was $32. We all felt it was well worth the money. My favorites
were the pickled jellyfish and sliced pork knuckle appetizer, the
eggplant hotpot, and the pea tips. Yummy! I love pea tips.

[Andy Wang]

Post by Melba's Jammin'
Some Twin Citians from rec.food.cooking and two other couples went to
dinner at Yummy on 25th and Nicollet. Awesome. On the recommendation
of Joe, our waiter, we ordered the combination dinner for 8 or 9 people,
appetizers (not part of the combination dinner) and two extra entrees.
Joe is a prince of a man. I brought him a jar of jam. :-) Pictures
and the rest of the story are on my website. Cost per person (including
tip) was $32. We all felt it was well worth the money. My favorites
were the pickled jellyfish and sliced pork knuckle appetizer, the
eggplant hotpot, and the pea tips. Yummy! I love pea tips.

Yummy is a good place to eat. We had our rehearsal dinner there.
There were about 35 people, and we made our own menu. Can't remember
what it came out to, but it was way less than $32/person. We had a ton
of wine, and food and I think it came out to <$600 bucks total including
tip.

Their dim sum on sat/sun is decent as well.

However, Yummy is sort of a prime example of what's wrong with chinese
food in the twin cities. There are alot of good tasting chinese
restaurants, but there are almost no good authentic chinese places.
They almost all have heavily americanized menus and cooking styles.
(fyi, i'm chinese and grew up eating lots of chinese food).

It's funny, as when I was working with the guy at yummy to come up with
our menu, he admitted to me that he doesn't really eat there. He hasn't
found any good authentic chinese restaurants in the twin cities either.

[Howard Beale]

Post by Andy Wang
(fyi, i'm chinese and grew up eating lots of chinese food).

With a name like Wang, I thought you were from Croatia via the Iron Range...

Post by Andy Wang
It's funny, as when I was working with the guy at yummy to come up with
our menu, he admitted to me that he doesn't really eat there. He hasn't
found any good authentic chinese restaurants in the twin cities either.

What's your opinion of Shuang Cheng? It's the only Chinese I eat with any
regularity.

[Andy Wang]

Post by Howard Beale
What's your opinion of Shuang Cheng? It's the only Chinese I eat with any
regularity.

I've only been to Shuang Cheng a couple of times. It was decent. The
seafood selections seem pretty good.

For some reason, we just don't get to there very often though.

I think village wok is probably the chinese place I frequent the most.

[Howard Beale]

Post by Andy Wang

Post by Howard Beale
What's your opinion of Shuang Cheng? It's the only Chinese I eat with any
regularity.

I've only been to Shuang Cheng a couple of times. It was decent. The
seafood selections seem pretty good.
For some reason, we just don't get to there very often though.
I think village wok is probably the chinese place I frequent the most.

I have a hard time finding a big difference between Shuang Cheng and Village
Wok. Admittedly it's been ages since I've eaten there, but I seem to
remember something about Shuang Cheng being started by cooks who left the
Wok. The menus (aside perhaps from some of the seafood specialties at
Shuang) are about the same.

[Andy Yee]

Post by Andy Wang
I've only been to Shuang Cheng a couple of times. It was decent. The
seafood selections seem pretty good.
For some reason, we just don't get to there very often though.
I think village wok is probably the chinese place I frequent the most.

I usually frequent:

Peking Garden, Washington & University in Mpls.
Hong Kong Noodles, Washington Ave. SE in Mpls.
Shuang Cheng, 4th St. SE, Mpls.
Mandarin Kitchen, 87th & Lyndale, Bloomington

all have good seafood selections. I'm sure there are a couple others
that are just as good. Of course, after being to Vancouver and China,
they just don't quite make the caliber of some of those restaurants
there, but for Minneapolis-St. Paul, the 4 above aren't bad...
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Yee E-Mail: ayee AT mn dot rr dot com
President Home Page: http://home.mn.rr.com/andyyee
New Directions Engineering, Inc.

Godwin's Law: As a USENET thread grows, the probability of a reference
to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1.00.
Corollary: When such a reference is made, it is generally
recognized that the poster has LOST the argument.

[Steve Sundberg]

Post by Andy Yee
Peking Garden, Washington & University in Mpls.
Hong Kong Noodles, Washington Ave. SE in Mpls.
Shuang Cheng, 4th St. SE, Mpls.

Haven't been to Shuang Cheng in ages but when it opened, it was
considered the best Hong Kong-Style seafood restaurant in the Twin
Cities. Peking Garden and Hong Kong Noodles have different menus IMHO,
the former more "urban" and the latter more "rural." Can't quite
describe them any better than that. HKN used to be more funky, too, in
atmostphere and appearance, with menus in Chinese up all over the
walls. It has since be redecorated to appear more sophisticated but I
haven't noticed any change for the worse in their food preparation.
Both PG and HKN stay open late, too, well past midnight, on Friday and
Saturday nights.

[WDS]

Post by Andy Wang
However, Yummy is sort of a prime example of what's wrong with chinese
food in the twin cities. There are alot of good tasting chinese
restaurants, but there are almost no good authentic chinese places.
They almost all have heavily americanized menus and cooking styles.

Years ago there was a new Chinese restaurant that opened here in
Rochester. We went there one of the first days it was open and the
food was great! It was also very different from every other Chinese
restaurant in town. While we liked it I heard a few other people
comment about the "weird food at that new Chinese place."

Alas, we went back the next week and their food was just like all the
others.

[g_i_n_k_o]

WDS <***@seurer.net> wrote:
:
: Andy Wang wrote:
:
: > However, Yummy is sort of a prime example of what's wrong with chinese
: > food in the twin cities. There are alot of good tasting chinese
: > restaurants, but there are almost no good authentic chinese places.
: > They almost all have heavily americanized menus and cooking styles.

Yummy is OK. It has some interesting "fusion" concepts involving
a Chinese base mixed with other clutural influences, using available
ingredients. . It most certainly is better than the stereotypical
restaurant one found in the Rochester area in the 90's.

: Years ago there was a new Chinese restaurant that opened here in
: Rochester. We went there one of the first days it was open and the
: food was great! It was also very different from every other Chinese
: restaurant in town. While we liked it I heard a few other people
: comment about the "weird food at that new Chinese place."
:
: Alas, we went back the next week and their food was just like all the
: others.

This is eactly what I don't like -- formulaic cooking which results
in the stereo-typical breaded Chinese midwestern american cuisine.

But, what exactly does "authentic" mean?

Food does not stay constant with time. Part of the reason why
our "Swedish food" is so bland is that it is authentic based
upon what immigrants brought with them more than 100 years ago.
They've moved on to better things, so we should really update
our "authentic" 1800's Swedish menus around here.

Thai food was transformed after new world hot peppers were
introduced by Dutch traders, Chinese and Malaysian food fused
to produce the wonderful Nonya cuisine. Korean food is currently
undergoing some delightful transformations. Vancouver had some
interesting items on the menu that I had never seen in Minnesota
Korean reastaurants. I was told that dishes were going both
ways across the Pacific between LA and Seoul.

The place with the most "authentic" food is where there are
clusters of ethinc restaurants compete with each other. We
have two large areas:

University Ave in St. Paul -- frog town

Nicolette south of Downtown Minneapolis -- Little Saigon / eat street

Places that do well there are very likely to be good because of
all the competition nearby. If there are lots of immigrants
eating there, it's likely to be closest to 'authentic' because
their tastes haven't been influenced by the manufactured food us
native citizens grew up on.

What I would like to see in an Authentic Chinese restaurant is
the new stuff Shanghai has been serving for just the past 5 years.