Tai Hoa B.B.Q.

Rating:

For true gastronomic adventurers, University Avenue in St. Paul is like the Galapagos Islands, and discovering little cafes like Krua Thailand and the Tai Hoa B.B.Q. is like a rare sighting of the endangered Galapagos sea turtle.

In the foodie beastiary, there are gourmets, who live for the seafood cappuccino at Vincent; gourmands, who would rather have a big hunk of beef at Manny's, and gastronomic adventurers, whose epicurean fantasies are being the first ones on their block to eat yak.

Ordinary Vietnamese and Thai cuisines have long since fallen out of favor with gastronomic adventurers; now that you can find decent tom yum in shopping malls in Eagan, it has lost its cachet. The challenge becomes to find Thai and Vietnamese cuisine that you can't find anywhere else.

That's where Krua Thailand and the Tai Hoa B.B.Q. shine.

Krua Thailand

Krua Thailand's menu includes scores of typical Thai dishes rarely seen at other local Thai restaurants, all helpfully illustrated with color photographs.

Finding such restaurants is usually part of a gastro-erotic fantasy story that includes happy natives (or rustic locals) and climaxes with a description of the most wonderful and sensuous (fill in the blank) you ever tasted. (Authors and radio show regulars Jane and Michael Stern are masters of this kind of storytelling.)

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