date: 2/15/11
location: minneapolis
grade: c

rice paper moved recently from it's hole-in-the-wall place where you felt you were maybe discovering a place no one knew about tucked away in linden hills almost hidden next to a bbq place to shea-influenced digs with subtle asian touches in the tres upscale 50th and france area. since what i got from their menu is a vietnamese cuisine done spa style, it does make a lot of sense in this location.

and it makes me suspect that i am not the demographic they're looking for to dine here now.

let's take the edamame ($5.95). most places do edamame steamed with salt on the outside. here, they use other herbs and serve it with a completely nonsalty thai sweet-and-sour sauce. is it a virtuous dish? i would think so. is it better without salt? no. the herbs weren't very forward and the sesame-seed studded sauce gave the dish some texture but not a lot of flavor.

but i'm sure the 'ladies who lunch' crowd love it. so much healthier without salt, no? hrm.

ruby and jade curry, tofu version- you can also get chicken ($16.95). the menu description on their web site is "wide rice noodles in a peanut-curry sauce, served with a green & red cabbage and cilantro salad tossed with peanut-curry dressing and a squeeze of lime, sprinkled with fresh roasted peanuts and crispy shallots."

it doesn't sound like the dish i had at all. my weren't wide ones, but thin. fine. whatever. then the sauce... which was curry, sure, but i detected no peanut in it. and it was just heat, no flavor. and no matter what the rest of the ingredients were, you couldn't taste anything but that heat. not the lime, shallot, cabbage, nothing. everything just turned into a texture. then the tofu cubes were cut too large to eat with the rest of the ingredients, so that was just one more texture with heat.

even when i took the leftovers home and added peanut sauce and salt and lime, i could still just taste heat. the curry took no prisoners. though hey, the edamame with salt (also added at home) was improved.

i did also try the rice paper coconut tofu ($13.95, they also do a shrimp version for a few buck more), but since i was mid-curry i didn't get the full flavor impact. it's served with jasmine rice and coconut flakes and sauce plus sesame seeds and a wee bit of green salad. very monochromoatic except for the veg. it was... low key. i can see where that would be a comforting dish. and the person who ordered it (who had been at the old location) liked their food more than i liked mine... so perhaps it's better if you stay away from the 'hot' dishes..

as for my not being the demographic... i'm just going to say that it was weird that other all two-person groups were seated at 4 person tables or booths (it was not crowded there), i was at a two-top- both before and after i came in. it wasn't even half full, maybe a quarter. so, odd.

after an initial check in where i mentioned i'd wait a while for the other person, the server didn't come back to the table for over 20 minutes- again, it wasn't that busy. they did find time to have a bit of a heated discussion with the management regarding the scheduling. that kind of harshes the zen vibe they were going for, as did the screaming kid in the back room. they have no music to cover ambient sounds, so that (and everyone's conversation) seemed louder than it should be.

they also timed it so we got dinners when we weren't even half done with the appetizer... and right then there was no rush of orders. however, water refills were decent enough. so there's that.

i thought prices are a little high, which seems to go with most restaurants in the area. you have to pay the rent somehow, though hey. given the coversations i heard in great detail, most people there will would have no problem affording them.

in the end, it comes down to the same thing as il gatto... some good stuff, some bad, may try it again if in the neighborhood, but i won't go out of my way to go there again.