Your Fortune: You'll Find Something Tasty at United Noodles

I've been feeling a little more upbeat lately. It might be because of Michelle Obama's scandalous audience winks, or it might be because we live very near to United Noodles in Minneapolis.

Now, I'm sure most MPLS food lovers have visited United Noodles, but on the off chance that you might have missed it, like we had, I'm here to tell you it's worth checking out.

United Noodles is a 15,000 square foot market containing more than 8,000 (mostly grocery) items from more than 15 countries including China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Being a dumpling freak, I was interested in checking out just how much United Noodles could offer me in terms of dumplings. Silly me, I didn't count the options because I was literally too excited to count. They've got everything you need to prepare jiaozi, wontons, and gyoza from scratch - or any other delicious Asian dumpling variety you can imagine, for that matter. For the less ambitious, they also host an ENTIRE BANK of freezers stuffed with various versions of frozen dumpling varieties. Seriously, I'm talking about dozens and dozens of meat, seafood, and vegetarian varieties of the frozen little delights, which are prepared with ease in 10 minutes on your stovetop.

They stock far more than dumplings, of course, including fresh specialty produce, dozens of varieties of dried and fresh noodles, varieties of tofu, seafood, sauces, mock meats, candies, snacks, fresh herbs, cookies, beverages, energy drinks, seasoning, cookware, serveware, teas, etc.

Obviously, I was starving after peeping all those dumplings, so we grabbed some lunch while we shopped the market. Lucky for us, they have a hot deli full of tasty-looking eats. They offer homestyle roasted pork and roasted duck daily. They offered no homemade dumplings at the deli, so I almost ordered the much lauded Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, but I opted for a daily special:

Taiwanese Soy Bean Paste Noodles

This dish was packed with flavor. Nothing fancy, just simple udon noodles topped with highly seasoned crumbled bean curd, sliced cucumber and bean sprouts. It came out to our table in less than 3 minutes. I added some of the spicy garlic sauce they made available on the table. It must have been made with firm/dried bean curd because the crumbles had the firmness of cooked meat, and it was a great platform for the garlicy, tangy, soy-based sauce. The cooks were far too busy to entertain my questions about the dish. I had some free water with my meal.

Pork Chop Special

gerg tried their daily pork chop special and commented that it was decent. He waited about 10 minutes for the chop. The pork chop special was served up on a bed of seasoned grilled onions and green peppers with a side of rice, pickled cucumbers, and some of their daily vegetable soup. gerg drank some of the free hot tea they offer.

Not sure what to order? No sweat - they offer free samples. Guess how much we paid for our lunches.......................$4.95 each. Tables are small and limited, and you're expected to bus your table yourself. That ain't no thang.

Deli Hours
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday to Saturday: 11am - 6pm
Sunday: 11am - 5pm

PS - Amy, your dumplings were totes awesome! Thanks again for the dinner invite! xoxoxo

[where: 55406]