Pad Thai Boran at Joy’s Pattaya Thai Restaurant
With all the restaurants along the busy stretch of Lyndale Avenue S. in Richfield, it’s easy to miss Joy’s Pattaya Thai Restaurant, a small, unassuming place. But we were craving Thai food, so we zeroed in on the place on the northeast corner of W. 76th Street.
The menu covers the basics, from fried rice and curries to stir-fries and noodle dishes, but then it goes on. One dish in particular, the Pad Thai Boran ($21), caught our attention. Boran loosely translates to “old” in Thai, alluding to an old-fashioned way of preparing the dish.
One bite and it quickly brought back memories of my honeymoon in Thailand, where my husband and I learned a new appreciation for pad Thais with a silky sauce that was sweet, sour and spicy, with ingredients like tamarind. The sauce here had the same flavor profiles and glided into the rice noodles. The Boran-style pad Thai automatically comess with shrimps and a thick omelette on top, with crushed peanuts and a slice of lemon – a dish that was as pretty as it was delicious. (Nancy Ngo)
It’s not really French, nor is it a taco, but these new happy hour bites at Chloe by Vincent in downtown Minneapolis are filled with everything you could want after a night of cocktails. (Joy Summers/Star Tribune)
French tacos at Chloe by Vincent
It sounds simple: French tacos. But this classic French late-night takeaway dish defies all logic.
“It’s not (traditionally) French. It’s not tacos,” said Vincent Francoual, chef and owner of Chloe by Vincent, where he has added his own version of the comfort food to the happy hour menu. “It’s the mac and cheese of France.”
