Eat The Menu: Viva Vinai

Vinai is the name of the refugee camp in Thailand where Yia Vang’s Hmong parents got married and bore the son who’d grow up to become a messiah of Hmong cuisine in Minneapolis. So, that’s what he named his ambitious restaurant in Northeast: Vinai. It’s dedicated to introducing our minds and palates to the rich fare of his heritage — and now, therefore, ours.

But this isn’t his first rodeo. His first endeavor, Union Hmong Kitchen, debuted as a pop-up on Lake Street, then found a home in Northeast’s Graze space. Vang’s celebration of his Hmong heritage didn’t go unnoticed: By now, he’s probably as familiar with a TV camera as a kitchen range. He’s been tapped as a James Beard finalist and dubbed Chef of the Year by Esquire magazine, among tons of accolades.

But Vinai is different. It ventures into fine dining territory, now occupying a space that started life as Dangerous Man Brewery. The dining room is an enormous arena of clean, contemporary bones starring banquettes and tables backed by a view of the working kitchen. And, I warn you right now, it’s loud. Prepare for your server to kneel by your table to make her voice heard above the chatter of a full-full-full house at 5:30 p.m. on a recent Tuesday. (I’m assuming by 7 p.m., there’s a line out the door stretching into a neighboring suburb.) Chances are you’ll spot the chef/patron himself, in his signature orange apron, patrolling the room now and then (nice touch, Chef).

Our server nimbly took our drinks ($15-17) order: mine, the 1988 New Fashioned, adding spices and lime and cardamom bitters to the usual suspects, and my companion’s Night Market, mixing gin with chile liqueur (didn’t know there was such a thing!), watermelon and lime to achieve a hint of heat to undercut the tasty fruit.

We skirted the list of snacks (eggplant spread, curried rice ball, deviled eggs, etc.) and raced right to, um, more snacks in a column entitled “Yog Peb Xwb” ($18-21), which translates to “It’s just us,” or “enticing and yummy,” if you ask me — particularly if you start off the evening with an order of shrimp and pork toast. But even before you place your order, a gift from the kitchen appears: chunks of compressed watermelon touched with mint to savor while you study the menu.

Sure, you’ve had shrimp toast in many a Chinese restaurant, but Chef Yia has a little fun with his rendition, starting by spreading the mixture onto giant slabs of Texas toast. The shrimp and pork, ground up and mixed, emit a sweet-cum-savory aura, inventively abetted by a dollop of even sweeter apricot chili served on the side. One of the best dishes of the evening.

Next, the laab carpaccio — an icon of Hmong cooking which featured a vast platter lined with paper-thin leaves of the ruddy raw beef, along with pickled red onion, shallots, snips of herbs, a drizzle of Thai chili oil to freshen the palate and a mound of purple sticky rice — crunchy and sticky, for sure, but pretty modest in flavor. Pretty presentation. Or choose fried catfish or grilled lamb’s heart for your starter, both sprinkled with fish sauce.

Weigh your options next between grilled meat, braised meat and/or rice-based entrees: $17 for noodles to $61 for the double-cut, and famous, pork chop, which we skipped to spare our pocketbook. Instead, we centered on the kitchen’s also-renowned Hilltribe grilled chicken, $29.

The generous portion of breast meat proved moist and tender and a willing playground for the ribbons of raw cabbage and Southeast Asian sofrito that elevated the dish via a sauce, apricot in tone and sweet-tart in flavor. It’s boosted by a brave zing of heat that delivers a long and satisfying finish. A coconut-ginger vinaigrette contributes yet another layer of taste to the preparation. You’ll discover a note of that ubiquitous fish sauce, too.

Finally, we shared a heaping platter of crabby fried rice ($25), which is just what it sounds like: mounds of fried rice, laced with hints (but not an overdose) of garlic, festooned with morsels of sweet blue crab and enriched with just what we needed, right? Crab fat. Nice indeed, but not rave material, just “normal” nice. And that’s fine.

There is a dessert menu, indeed ($14 each), but we failed to save room. If you’re better at this trick than I, prepare to enjoy mango madness, chocolate lava cake with ice cream or passionfruit cheesecake, and head home smiling.

Vinai
1300 NE Second St.
(612) 749-6051
vinaimn.com