Plus, Gorkha Palace gets a new owner, St. Paul mulls drive-thru restrictions, and more intel
Khue’s Kitchen, a Vietnamese restaurant from chef Eric Pham, is coming to the former Ngon Bistro space on University Avenue this August. Pham’s grandmother, Lung Tran, opened Eat Street’s famous Quang in 1989 — his mother, Khue Pham, is a chef at the restaurant. Eric spent most of 2023 running Khue’s Kitchen as a pop-up restaurant at natural wine bar Bar Brava, serving caramelized baby back ribs, five-spice fried tofu, and a chile-flecked fried chicken sandwich, among other dishes. As far as the menu at the new restaurant goes, Pham says he plans to bring back a few favorites from his Bar Brava days, but he’s also “excited to share a menu that I have only ever dreamed of creating. No holding back come August.”
Gorkha Palace sells to a new owner
Racket has the scoop on Northeast Indian, Tibetan, and Nepalese restaurant Gorkha Palace, which recently sold to new owners. Owner Rashmi Bhattachan hopes to spend more time on her second restaurant, MomoDosa; Sarala Kattel, her business partner, and chef, is also nearing retirement. Happily, it looks like not much will change with the restaurant’s menu or name. “We have such a history, so many years of good will,” Bhattachan told Racket. “We’re very happy with that. The new owners are really young, energetic, vibrant — they might even bring a little more variety to the menu.”
St. Paul mulls drive-thru restrictions
St. Paul is considering adding new restrictions on drive-thru lanes in an attempt to make neighborhoods more walkable and bike-friendly, the Pioneer Press reports, following the release of a city study in March. A number of ideas are currently on the table, including banning new drive-thrus, as Minneapolis did in 2019, or restricting them in certain zoning districts — the Pi Press reports that city’s Planning Commission will likely “revisit” the topic this summer before it goes to the city council.
Union Depot gets a new restaurant
St. Paul’s Union Depot is getting a new restaurant from the owners of the Lake Elmo Inn, according to a press release. John and Christine Schiltz plan to launch 1881 on July 18, offering lunch, happy hour, and dinner service Wednesday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The menu will be fairly similar to that of the Lake Elmo Inn, so expect supper club-y classics like chopped wedge salads, crusted walleye, pasta, and lots of steak.
