Editor’s Note: The Verdant Tea Tasting Room is now closed.
Every year, the Heavy Table assembles a collection of “three tastes” – the three most memorable, delicious, significant things we’ve eaten over the past 12 months. Generally speaking, I don’t put my list together until mid-December, but also generally speaking, I don’t try dishes as perfectly conceived and executed at the sweet potato curry soba noodles ($8.50) at the Verdant Tea Tasting Room.
This dish will be on my list. It will probably head up my list, in fact.
This is the taste of autumn in a bowl, willed into existence by Verdant contributor Nate Uri (of Hot Date With Nate YouTube fame). These buckwheat noodles are both tender and toothsome, flavorful without being coarse or aggressive. Both the broth and dish’s spice profile are rich and pack real heat without overwhelming the cheerful, delicate taste of the sweet potatoes, which is completely suffused throughout the dish. And an herbal brightness provides a critical counterpoint to the tuber’s natural sweetness and the curry’s soul-warming depth of spice.
It would be nice to say something critical about this dish for the sake of balance, but there just isn’t anything available – I had it for lunch, and am, in all seriousness, thinking about going back and having it again for dinner. And if you can get over to Verdant Tea and order a mug of hot chai and these supernaturally soothing noodles while it is cool and rainy outside, you may have one of those flashbulb food memories that last a lifetime.
(Verdant Tea Tasting Room, 2111 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, 612.223.8907)
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