The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

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There's always something happening on Eat Street.

Bali, the new Indonesian restaurant that is supposed to replace Safari at 1410 Nicollet, isn't open yet, but you can get a sneak preview of their menu on their website. Some of the dishes sound familiar, like the dagingh rendang ($13.75), hot and spicy beef slowly cooked in coconut milk, and Sambal Goreng Udang/ Tempeh (shrimp fried with tempeh, $11.75. That's because there's some overlap between the cuisine of Indonesia, and the Malaysian fare served just down the street at Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine.

A little farther south on Eat Street, I stopped in for lunch today at the Café Thang Bom, 2647 Nicollet, which so far seems to be more of a social club and karaoke hangout for young Vietnamese men than an actual restaurant. The owners speak only limited English, but the last time I dropped by, they insisted that I had to come back and try their noodles, so I did. There's no printed menu, and as far as I can tell, the kitchen currently offers only two options: noodle soup with seafood, or noodle soup with roast duck ($9).

I opted for the latter, and soon got a delicious bowl of steaming broth with egg noodles, greens and slices of intensely flavorful duck. A woman stopped by to ask how I liked it - great, I said, and then told me that they would soon have a new name (Noodle Bowl), and a real menu, and a much bigger selection of items, including spring rolls, rice plates, and stir-fried squid. They are just waiting for her brother to come back from Vietnam, where he just got married.

The field of Vietnamese cafes and noodle houses on Eat Street seems to be getting very crowded: Hoang Thien Y Deli at 2738 Nicollet, just opened a few weeks ago, and the new Hoa Pho Noodle Café is supposed to open soon in the old Yummy/ Relax space at 2500 Nicollet. That's in addition to Jasmine Deli, Jasmine 26, Pho Tau Bay, Vinh Loi, Quang Restaurant, Caravelle and Pho 79, all within a few blocks of each other.