Evergreen Chinese Restaurant

SoG Score: Food: B++ | Ambiance: B
Type: Chinese, Taiwanese
Address: 2424 Nicollet Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Price: $

I didn't think it was possible to get authentic Taiwanese style home cooking and breakfast items in the twin cities until we tried Evergreen. The owner acts as your host, server, and cashier, while his wife makes classic home cooked meals in the kitchen. The decor (or lack of) is very basic, reminiscent of small family run restaurants in Taiwan. Visit for the authentic food not the decor. They also serve Let's Tea boba- we had taro tea with boba, boba was hard tea had good flavor but taro was made from powder.

We had delicious steamed and fried dumpling and spicy beef noodle soup 紅燒牛肉麵 with homemade noodles. We'll have to make it back on a weekend morning for the ultimate Taiwanese breakfast: sweet and salty soy milk with my favorite, fan twan 飯糰 (rice rolls) and the greasy but oh so yummy shao bing you tiao 燒餅油條 (crispy sticks of fried dough wrapped in a sesame biscuit). Oh I can't wait!

the good: serves up unexpectedly authentic Chinese and Taiwanese classics hard to come by in the twin cities
the not so good: lack of decor
Overall: recommended: grandma's kitchen Chinese cooking that won't dent the pocketbook

Jun Bo

SoG Score: Food: C+ | Ambiance: C-
Type: Chinese, DimSum
Address: 7717 Nicollet Avenue
Richfield, MN 55423
Price: $$ (count on around $15 per person for dim sum)

After having a couple of people recommend Jun Bo for dim sum and browsing through the quite nice website, we were really excited to try Jun Bo. We probably shouldn't have gone on a Monday afternoon as the servers told us that they had run out of many items since they were so busy during the weekend. Luckily, we were able to try most of our favorites including the shrimp dumplings, shui mai, and Jeff's favorite, turnip cake. The quality of the ingredients and flavor were decent but the temperature of the food was at best lukewarm and by the end of the meal, we felt like we were eating leftovers that they barely had time to reheat (which unfortunately I think was the case). As for decor, it feels like you're eating in a rundown ballroom although the aquarium in the entryway is beautiful.

the good: dim sum all day everyday, easy parking
the not so good: cold food (on weekdays at least), poor decor
Overall: Not recommended, might be worth a try on a weekend