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Rice Paper
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| Where to Eat Healthy and Well | The Accidental "Lunchers" | |
| It’s not so much as a
time warp as a culture warp, this tucked away neighborhood in South
Minneapolis called Linden Hills. I’m convinced that what’s kept it
this way is the lack of easy highway access. The demographics are
undoubtedly toward the affluent end for the city, two lakes are within
easy walks, and it’s really rather central, but you can’t get there
quickly from the ‘burbs. Hence no Champps or Baja Tortilla
Grills or, for that matter, Ciao
Bellas are likely to ever mar the
homegrown, almost quaint atmosphere that pervades it. I hope I don’t
speak too soon … and in fact there has been one jarring addition to
the restaurant scene here, a Dave’s Famous Barbeque outlet, and
for a while it sported a D’Amico & Sons—not national
chains, but headed in that direction.
This outlier aside, however, the dining options today are limited to small, distinctive, family-run restaurants. There’s Zumbro’s, the quintessential neighborhood hangout, Café Twenty Eight, located in an old fire station (no. 28) house, and, new to the area, Rice Paper. B and I decided to rendezvous at 43rd St. and Upton Ave. this past Monday and then decide which of the former two to go to, but it turned out that they are both closed on Monday and so it was that we ended up at RP. A happy accident. The small space that RP occupies has seen a series of Asian restaurants since I’ve been familiar with the neighborhood, going back to Camdi, a Vietnamese (or was it Cambodian?) place run by an engineer-turned-restaurateur … B, incidentally, has aspirations in that direction. The last restaurant was of the Thai persuasion. Now, with RP, we continue the Asian theme but nonspecifically. That’s nonspecifically as to the particular provenance of the food.—you really couldn’t ask for more specificity about the offerings than what the menu provides. Here, for example, is what the menu says about the appetizer and dishes we ordered:
The four starters and eleven entrées are all described with this level of detail. Although we knew what we were getting, I was still surprised by the food. The flavors were bold, intense, and fresh. Our starter was unique, and the strong citrus flavor and spicy sauce rendered it perhaps a bit too intense. The rice paper chips—a lighter, more delicate version of pappadam with encrusted black sesame seeds—helped cut the intensity but one needed a bigger portion of them. The leaf-wrapped beef rolls were nothing like stuffed grape leaves, if reading the description made you think of them. In fact, they weren’t like anything else I’ve eaten: small, each about an inch-and-a-half in length, formed rolls of wonderfully savory ground beef tightly wrapped in a single layer of leaf. One partakes of this dish by taking a lettuce leaf and using it to wrap the beef rolls and various other ingredients. The dish was a mess to eat, but I highly recommend it—just ask for a couple of extra napkins. I was less impressed by B’s rice trio with tofu, although it was distinctive too … more rice and sauce than "substance," perhaps. RP combines intensity with a health-food/new-age touch. Vegetarians, and even vegans, will find choices aplenty. In at least two respects, though, the health-food emphasis was a bit too heavy for me. I was all prepared to order the pad thai and the Vietnamese iced coffee until I read the details … the pad thai is sans egg and the coffee is decaffeinated! But the hot tea I had was quite good and you can also sample imported exotic Asian fruit drinks—B got the guava juice, a sip of which took me back to a childhood home the backyard of which used to feature a stand of guava trees by a makeshift cricket pitch. RP doesn’t offer any desserts as yet … our waitress gave us the impression that they were experimenting with some possibilities but weren’t ready to roll them out as yet (they’ve been open about four months and my expectations are raised!). So our meal ended, perforce, with neither coffee nor dessert. The restaurant space is elegant and clean but cramped. The access to the kitchen is through a door at the back of the dining room and the tables are spaced barely wide enough for a waitperson to walk through with a trayful of food. But the door is camouflaged with a floor-to-ceiling bamboo forest print that covers the whole back wall—and parts of other walls. The ceiling is wood lath painted black, the floor is nicely finished light wood. White paper lanterns suspended from the ceiling serve as light fixtures. Fresh flowers in small glazed earthen vases further brighten up each table. It was a pleasant surprise to literally stumble upon a place of this quality … apparently we’re not as familiar with the Twin Cities dining scene as we like to think we are! A |
The Rice Paper is a case in point of not painting with too broad a brush. If yesterday you’d asked me for my thoughts on pan Asian or Asian fusion food you would have got a negative response. To put it bluntly Azia is an example of the worst of this genre and the sort of place that is a poster child for a failed experiment in experimental Asian food. But that was yesterday. Today A & I, by sheer serendipity, have stumbled upon a little gem of a restaurant, serving—you’ve guessed it—Asian fusion food. The Lunch had a fabulous meal at Rice Paper in Linden Hills and can’t recommend it enough. The happy accident occurred because the two restaurants we had to choose between—Zumbro’s and Café Twenty-Eight—were both in Linden Hills and were both closed. Driving in to Linden Hills, I found A beetling back and forth, guarding all entrance points to Linden Hills, awaiting my late arrival, having already secured a table at the Rice Paper. Linden Hills is a cute little community, nestled in close proximity to the lakes. This is Howard Dean country if the yard signs are anything to go by just as Eden Prairie is staunchly pro Dubya if the bumper stickers are anything to go by. The restaurant is really tiny with green wall papering that provides the illusion of being in a bamboo forest. The door to the kitchen is especially well disguised. Coming back to the pan Asian cuisine theme the menu is a mixture of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai. We started with an appetizer intriguingly named Pamelo and grapefruit festivity, an amazing dish in which grapefruit bits are served covered with tangy peanut sauce. There are sesame encrusted rice paper chips that can be used to scoop up the sauce and to provide a blander balance to this otherwise zesty dish. There are several other appetizer options including pot stickers. The drinks option runs the gamut from exotic Asian juices to the sweet Vietnamese coffee, however, I didn’t notice beer or wine on the menu. I chose—almost at A’s insistence—a guava juice (could have opted for the coconut milk but there are some lessons that I do learn), sweetly aromatic the drinking of which brought back a few tropical memories. For our main course I ordered the tamarind rice trio. Again a very clever dish with a multitude of flavors. It can be ordered with chicken, or the way I ordered it, with tofu. The rice trio is made up of three separate little piles of rice with individual sauce covering that gives them a flavor ranging from sweet to spicy. I was less enthusiastic about the tofu, which could have been crispier – my suggestion: order the chicken instead. A had the bo la lot (Grilled mini beef rolls wrapped in aromatic la lot leaves). If RP has a signature dish this has got to be it. The beef is rolled into la lot leaves (the menu describes them as grape leaf like) and is only a couple of inches in length. Our waitress explained how one should roll the beef-leaf into a lettuce before eating it. The beef itself was mouthwateringly delicious and full of flavor. I eyed A’s dish enviously and could have eaten about twenty of the little rolls myself. The entrées also include a pad Thai but I left that for my next visit. Apparently dessert hasn’t made its way to RP’s menu yet but if you must have dessert then try the sweet Vietnamese coffee. The Lunch has found a most exciting destination and one that is a well-kept secret. Here is a treat for those hardy souls who read our columns regularly – a lunch scoop. Go on the next time you want to invite a friend or a colleague to lunch take them out to Linden Hills and impress them with Rice Paper and it won’t even put a serious dent in your wallet. Our bill came to $38.00 B
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