Could it be Hmong Village, 1001 Johnson Pkwy, Saint Paul, MN?
It is a large indoor market, set in a warehouse, Hmong stores and stalls only, a kind of Eden Center (for those of you who know Falls Church, VA) for Laotians. The produce and spice and bark sections are amazing. Along one wall of the warehouse are about fifteen small restaurants, barely more than stalls, mostly Hmong in their cooking but two served authentic-looking Thai food.
Based on visual inspection of the options, we dined at Houaphanh Kitchen, which was superb, don’t forget the dipping sauces. And I hope you like purple sticky rice. The other places did not look much worse and there were many more dishes I wanted to sample. Overall entrees ran in the $4 to $6 range. Highly recommended.
Here is some discussion, with good photos. Here are some useful Yelp reviews.
Originally posted on Marginal Revolution – click to see comments and suggestions.
Thank you! I’ve been seeking Hmong food for ages, and while I’ve known that MSP was a good place to start looking, I’ve never had the right pointers to find it. I’ll just need to remember this until the next time I make it out there – and the last time was about 8 years ago.
Ah well, it’s good to have a goal.