Asian Express 2

Not a bad spot to get a quick phở fix if you work downtown and don’t want the struggle of leaving the area for lunch! Authentic Vietnamese dishes are good also. Hot and spicy chicken is above average for the St Paul area.

I agree with Justin. After discovering this place from his review, I’ve stopped by for the egg roll salad almost weekly. Fresh, fast, cheap, and satisfying, this is one of my favorite go-​to downtown lunches.

I admit that I only come to this place for one thing, but that’s because it’s pretty much perfect. I’m talking about the Vietnamese vermicelli salad with egg roll. It’s one of the least expensive items on the menu, but the combination of fresh lettuce, cilantro, shredded carrots and ground peanuts, with a heaping pile of noodles and then two hot crispy egg rolls sliced into rounds on top is just amazing. There’s plenty of other things on the menu, standard fast-​food pan-​Asian, but someone else will have to tell you about those. I can speak to the friendliness of the owner, though, who stayed a little past close to assemble my salad when I stopped by on my way out to run some errands. He didn’t slap it together or rush it out so he could take off for the night. It’s the little things like that that keep me coming back!