Saturday, May 30, 2009

Willowgate Restaurant - Roseville, MN

CLOSED Dec 2017(?)
1885 West Perimeter Dr

I was semi-lost only to find Perimeter Road with a host of restaurants. Perimeter Road could be considered a mini Eat Street in the middle of nowhere.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pollo Rico - Barcelona, Spain

CLOSED 2018(?)

Carre de Sant Pau, 31 ‎

Pollo Rico is located off Los Ramblas in a street resmbling a narrow alley. We stopped here for dinner as we had seen it packed with locals earlier during the day.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

JT's Hamburgers - West St Paul, MN

CLOSED Nov 2016(?). Story on closing

1224 Robert St S

Dive! Dive! Dive! This is classic dive food with commensurate dive quality. It's classic dive cheap at $4.99 for a Deluxe combo with a drink.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

North China Restaurant - Maplewood, MN

CLOSED July 2016

3070 White Bear Ave N

I wasn’t thrilled with their offerings. She ordered Mongolian Beef, Sweet and Sour Shrimp, and Pork Chow Fun. As we waited for the takeout, I walked down the buffet line. Hmmm…

I was ravenous by the time we got home. I tore into the cartons and was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of the food. It looked a lot better than the buffet station food, however, the true test would be in the eating.

Mongolian Beef. Nice thinly sliced but large cuts of tender beef. No rough dry cuts of beef. The green peppers were sliced right and cooked well. The brown sauce was just right the right combination of sweet, salty, and spicy.

Sweet and Sour Chicken. Nice nugget sized chicken breast with a light batter. The sweet and sour sauce was subtle rather than typical overpowering.

Pork Chow Fun. This was the most pleasant surprise. First, it was missing that all elusive wok hay taste, however it was still very good with all the right ingredients. Two things really surprised me to my liking. Instead of using precut rice noodles, they used rice noodle sheets that they cut/tore resulting in noodles of varying width. The pork wasn’t pork as I had expected but rather Chinese BBQ pork and good quality BBQ pork at that.

No doubt North Chinese caters to the  fried rice and kung pao chicken crowd. To me that usually means mediocre quality but North China is a pleasant surprise in the sea of Americanized Chinese restaurants. If what we ordered today is representative of the quality they normally serve off the menu, I would recommend it and would continue to order from here.

Prices are competitive and they serve a good quantity for the money.