Asian Street Food on Arcade in St. Paul

Lately we've been on a good run visiting some of our favorite food venues that just do not disappoint us.  Tonight we chose the new offering in the former Romolo's on Arcade.

Asian Street Food

Everyone seems in pursuit of authentic street food, most of which comes in a truck...on a street somewhere.  Dining inside was our choice tonight.

Our server was attentive and very helpful with our questions before ordering.  The new owners have done some light upgrading of the interior.  The new decor includes an appropriate paint palette.

Still on my vegetarian theme, I opted for the the Papaya Salad which was available in both a Laotian and Thai version.  With shredded papaya, long green beans, tomatoes, lettuce and lime in the Laotian style, I was enthused.  Most Thai restaurants have a rating scale of 1-5 on how 'Thai' (hot) you opt for.  The very friendly and helpful server asked if 'we wanted to pick a level of heat'; we said 'mild' so that we could determine what 'mild' meant on our first items.
 

Asian Street Food Papaya Salad

My announcement to Linda after just one small bite: "I don't think I can eat this.  It's over the top hot."  There were only two or three long beans. The tomatoes were probably three in total, sliced very thin.  With the excessive heat it was hard to detect any lime.  The lettuce was inundated with the overly hot sauce.

Linda was also on the salad theme, opting for the Cucumber Salad. 

Asian Street Food Cucumber Salad

 "Shredded Cucumber, Tomato, Thai Chile, Garlic and Lime" was enticing with the specified 'mild' provisioning.  I could see in Linda's eyes that her salad also was not a 'mild' experience.  Once again, the cucumber salad sounded refreshing and light, a nice meal at the end of a long day. 

The Cucumber Salad had enough tomatoes, but once Linda realized how hot it was, she picked out the red pieces thinking those were the source of the heat...but on closer inspection, all the cukes were covered with chili seeds...hard to see but very, very hot.   The problem was that the salad was so heavily dressed/marinated...that the heat was overwhelming.  If the salad had a light coating of dressing, the heat might have been in an edible range.  The aroma of the fish sauce was way too potent...another indicator that there was just far too much sauce for the amount of veggies. .



Both of our salads we accompanied with some small crisp fried rice chips.

The spring rolls were nicely done with a pleasant presence of fresh mint.  They do contain shrimp and we failed to ask if a vegetarian version was available.  

The short ribs were flavorful, but the portion seemed a bit skimpy because several of the slices were primarily bone; they were well-prepared, with a flavorful Asian marinade.  If the 2 skimpy pieces had been more meaty, the portion would have been fine.
 

Asian Street Food Spring Rolls and Short Ribs

Overall Impression of Asian Street Food

Two of the dishes were very hot--that's unacceptable when they asked what heat level we wanted, and we said 'mild.'   In case you think it's just 2 old geezers who 'can't take the heat', we took the papaya salad leftovers with us and let a much younger person try it...she barely recovered from the bite she took expecting a fresh, fruity salad experience (we didn't warn her).

If all of the short rib pieces had been as meaty as the 2 best ones on the plate, this would have been a fine portion for the price.   Those two pieces that weren't meaty left us feeling hungry for one or two more bites each.

The server was very friendly and made a smaller Thai(?) coffee since they don't have any takeout cups yet (they've only been open two weeks).    The server didn't return for awhile to check on how satisfied we were with our choices.  Since she had been so attentive earlier,  I suspect that she knew or figured out in the kitchen that the salads were already dressed with 'hot' dressing (maybe already marinated)...but she didn't want to have to tell us that and wait while we made other selections.

Our recommendation:  Wait for a month or two before you visit---this might give them a chance to work the kinks out at this location.   They already operate at least one food truck and another restaurant under a different name.  So this might be a case where they need some fine tuning.   There isn't much of an excuse for serving overly spicy food after you've asked the customer the heat level they desired, so that is a big negative.  By contrast, the spring rolls were fresh and tasty; the short ribs were good...there just wasn't quite enough of them.   

 

We'd rate this visit to Asian Street Food:  "Not Quite Sure What to Think"

----------------------------------

Details:

Location:   Google Map

Website:    Asian Street Food

Facebook:  Asian Street Food

Instagram: Asian Street Food