$$ - average
Malaysian
Malaysian cuisine on Nicollet
Peninsula is a new restaurant featuring Malaysian cuisine on Eat Street. The interior is quite large, with wooden floors, tables, and chairs.
The menu has a reasonable selection of vegetarian items, and the waitstaff can help you find suitable dishes. The "vegetables" section of the menu is where most of the vegetarian dishes are found, but not all the dishes listed here are veg. Ask your server if you have questions.
Parking is available across the street and a bit south, but only after 6:00 PM.
Just south of the 26th and Nicollet intersection, on the west side of the street.
- Large Group-Friendly
Added by Dave Rolsky on Feb 7 06 (updated Apr 13 06)
Reviews
Went to Peninsula on the recommendation of my wife's co-worker , who is from Malaysia and recommended the food as being quite good.
Based on the reviews here, we were cautious and mentioned all the individual foods we don't eat (as opposed to saying "we're vegan") to the original person who greeted us at our table (I think he was a host). He suggested that we could eat a couple of tofu dishes and ruled out the mock duck because it is prepared with fish sauce.
When the server came, we ordered the two dishes the host had suggested and explained again to the server (at the suggestion of the host) what we did not eat. He took our order but then returned a moment later to tell us the tofu is made with egg. At that point, we thanked him and left.
Not sure how to grade this, as we didn't eat the food. The restaurant was interesting and could be nice if you're not vegan, but we literally couldn't eat anything as far as we could tell. On the plus side, they were helpful even though their information seemed to be quite inaccurate at times.
Although I had a good experience on my first visit, my second visit was a disaster.
On the first trip, our waiter was very helpful in determining what was vegan, which was great.
On the second, we had a different waiter who when told we don't eat animal products, said that all Malaysian food used chicken broth as its base, and he didn't know what we could get. He said he would ask them to make the dishes vegan, but that if there was something not vegan in it we should tell him and he would have them re-make it. I appreciated his earnestness, but the thought that what we got might have random meat or seafood products in it was not reassuring.
And once again, like my first visit, they were unable to keep my water glass filled at all. In addition, my wife ordered a drink on the second visit that didn't come until after all our food was finished.
At this point, I don't think I'd go back any time soon.
I ate here the a few nights ago and really liked it. I got the Japanese pan seared tofu (be sure to order w/out egg if you are vegan) and it was yum!! They say on the menu that their tofu and mock duck are homemade and I believe it -- it was such good tofu. There aren't too many places where you can get homemade tofu in MSP. My husband really enjoyed his non-veg noodle dish too. The waitstaff was nice and the service fast. We'll be back many times I'm sure.
Also as an update on Dave's comment... I drink *A LOT* of water and it was very crowded when I was there and my water was never more than 1/3 empty.
I give this place a good rating for atmosphere and service, but the food is overpriced and bland. We tried the satay tofu and pickled vegetable salad for appetizers - the salad was relatively cheap and there was a lot of it, but I thought it was gross, and the tofu was okay, but not great. The main dishes were disappointing - I ordered something that was supposed to be spicy and all I can say is that it wasn't. My husband's dish was equally bland - the Buddhist veggies with tofu skin. We even left some food there rather than take it home, which I can not remember ever doing before. The menu is difficult to navigate if you're vegetarian, so be sure to ask what is in the dishes - they can omit oyster sauce and other sea life from certain dishes, and some things that appear to be veg have various sea animals in them.
I imagine this place is much better for non-vegans, because our waitress told me the green curry without tofu would probably be the only thing on the menu I could eat. The veggies in the curry were great, but the curry itself was watery, and hot without being flavorful.
We didn't have issues with water glasses not being filled.
The presentation was fantastic, every meal looked like a piece of art. Wish more of it was something I would eat.