2005-11-06

stp: Favorite eatery Hoa Bien is crater-ized

I was going out to lunch the other day, driving down University heading for my favorite local joint, Hoa Bien. It was a downscale cheap-but-good-but-healthy Vietnamese place with decent, quick service.

I liked the make-them-yourself lettuce rolls, and I was headed there only to find a crater, a bulldozer, and the building that's being raised (rather than razed) on the Northwest corner of Lexington and University.

That's progress? Let it be known, Twin Cities, I'm pissed off and hungry. Where art thou, Hoa Bien?

Update

The fabulous University United site has a chronology of the new TCF bldg (under construction) that has so rudely uprooted Hoa Bien.

Update Plus

Astute reader KK has this good news:
Just yesterday I went past the Hoa Bien corner on the bus, and they have a sign up now indicating the new building there is indeed going to be for Hoa Bien... I think it said "restaurant and banquet center."

3 comments:

Bill Lindeke said...

Let's hope so. I also just heard a rumour that they run, or will run, another restaurant near Maryland and Grand.

Bill Lindeke said...

Oops, I meant Maryland and Dale, in the North End.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, but when they are in a nice new building, will they still be the sweet modestly price Hoa Bien we all loved so well. I'm afraid they might wind up more like Lee Ann Chin (yuck !).