In St. Paul, great deals and ethnic diversity
Discussion of the Twin Cities Minneapolis and St. Paul - inevitably tends to revolve around the former, while the latter, despite being the state capital, is usually relegated to a footnote. It’s easy to see how this happens: Minneapolis’ population is larger by roughly one-third. The 10 tallest buildings in the Twin Cities all call Minneapolis home. Like a middle child, St. Paul is given short shrift, especially where travel coverage is concerned.
It’s time to reverse that dynamic. St. Paul is a dream for those watching their budgets, with quality restaurants, good shopping and interesting activities - all at a discount. It’s also particularly notable for its ethnic diversity - while it may be known as the now former home of “A Prairie Home Companion,” St. Paul has substantial Somali, Vietnamese and Ethiopian communities, as well as one of the largest Hmong populations in the country. I was particularly interested in speaking with members of the Hmong community, and getting to know some of their civic and cultural institutions.
I began at the Hmong Cultural Center and Hmong American Partnership on University Avenue in Frogtown, a neighbourhood where many Hmong immigrants settled when they began fleeing Southeast Asia in large numbers in the 1970s. The cultural center, with a modest library, examples of traditional Hmong embroidery and educational materials on the Hmong in Minnesota, is worth a quick visit but serves primarily as a resource for the community itself, providing English and citizenship classes. According to displays at the center, the Hmong began fleeing Laos en masse after the Communist Pathet Lao movement took control of the government in 1975, fearing reprisal and persecution. The first refugees arrived in Minnesota in the winter of 1975-76.
Across the street at the Hmong American Partnership, I struck up a conversation with Jai Vang, a local resident who was happy to speak to me about his experience as a first-generation Hmong immigrant. “Over the course of 40 years, I think we really created a home here and we’ve really become part of the St. Paul community,” said Vang, who came to St. Paul with his family in 1979. “I was eight years old, so it was a challenge,” he said. “The language, the culture. There were so few families. We would really struggle: dealing with social services or even shopping and asking about prices.
“People had never used toilets, never used telephones,” he continued. “They really had to be trained to adapt to society. I mean, reverse the roles: I take you and put you in the jungle. How are you going to adapt? How are you going to get your food?” I asked him how the neighbourhood had changed since he arrived, and he said that immigrants had contributed substantially to the revitalization of the area.
“You couldn’t walk around here. Prostitution, drugs, you’d be afraid you’d get beat up,” he said. “Now you have hundreds of businesses here along University, mom-and-pop shops from around the world: Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Cambodian.” Vang noted that the new Metro Green Line light rail running from downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul has aided in the neighbourhood’s continuing rejuvenation.
I asked Vang what he would recommend I see if I wanted to get a taste of Hmong culture. “Do you have a car?” he asked. So, even though we’d known each other for roughly 30 minutes, he and I proceeded to cruise around St. Paul in my rental car for the better part of the afternoon. We drove around the Frogtown, SummitUniversity and Thomas-Dale neighbourhoods, while he pointed out places of interest. “You have to go there,” he said, as we passed Trung Nam French Bakery. “Best croissant in the world.” It was closed when we drove by (open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. only), so I made a mental note to return.
He took me to the Hmongtown Marketplace, a sprawling complex on Como Avenue that has the feel of an Asian street market. We headed past the merchandise stalls and straight for the modest food court, which was abuzz with activity: Vendors sliced green papayas and fresh fruit, ladled steaming terrines of soup and scooped out portions of steaming purple rice. Vang and I went to a stall called Mama’s Fusion where I bought a large soup with mushrooms and fresh herbs; beef and tripe soup; and an enormous green papaya salad, all for $11. The papaya salad was tangy and funky with fish sauce, mixed with fresh tomatoes and green beans and dotted with crunchy peanuts.
Another Hmong shopping bazaar I visited with Vang, and then again later with my cousin Ellen, was the Hmong Village Shopping Center. From the exterior, it looks like a mundane warehouse attached to a huge parking lot. Within are dozens of merchandise and food vendors, hawking everything from khao poon curry noodle soup to an entire roast duck. I was already pretty full, so Ellen and I shared a big fried sesame ball filled with coconut as well as some fried bananas.
While the food at the different Hmong markets could keep you occupied for days in St. Paul, there are other worthy uses of your time. The Minnesota History Center with an always-changing series of interactive and multimedia exhibitions, is a particularly good place to take kids. More for adults is a free tour of the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Paul, an enormous, 3,000-seat structure designed by Emmanuel LouisMasqueray. Tours run at 1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
The South St. Anthony neighbourhood around Raymond Avenue is also fun to explore, with restaurants, shops, galleries and a great, laidback vibe. Barely Brothers Records, which has been open for about two years, has live music performances in the back of the shop and even posts album reviews on its website. Two doors down, I enjoyed a red-tinged beet falafel sandwich at Foxy Falafel, a casual Mediterranean restaurant.
Other worthy stops are the farmers’ market in downtown St. Paul, which runs most weekends until 1 p.m. I strolled through the market, perusing $2 bunches of rhubarb and $5 baskets of red potatoes while nibbling on a tasty sample of sheep’s milk cheese from LoveTree Farmstead Cheese.
The single best thing I ate on the trip, though, was a sour soup from Kolap, a Cambodian restaurant. The powerfully tangy broth was filled with big chunks of tilapia, pineapple and bitter melon. After the meal I spoke with one of the owners, Sarun Pen. Pen fled Laos via a refugee camp in the Philippines, arriving in Minnesota in 1983. He spoke quietly of the Cambodian genocide that killed millions in the late 1970s. “They weren’t supposed to kill people,” he said, but the peasants resented the educated class. “Then it started: You kill more people, you get more rank. You get more stars. It was bad.” He met his wife in the United States, and they opened a restaurant together. “She spoils me,” he said, smiling. “I can’t eat anyone else’s food now.”
On my way to the airport the following morning, I drove by Trung Nam, the bakery I had made a mental note to visit. While the croissant may not have been the best I’d ever eaten, it was nevertheless buttery, flaky excellence. Equally good was the banh mi sandwich. Impressed by everything St. Paul had to offer, I made another mental note: to come back soon, and to encourage others to do the same.