Believe the Hype: PinKU Japanese
We’ve been meaning to visit PinKU, the new spot on University that’s part Japanese street food restaurant, part art installation, and part fresh food concept. We’re very happy to tell you that it’s all fantastic.
In fact, we’d go so far as to say this is exactly the model of food we need all over MPLS + STPL. First, the space is beautiful, well designed, importantly unique, and efficiently small. It could honestly be a pop-up at a modern design exhibition. Size-wise it’s also the missing link between our booming food truck scene and our successful hip restaurants.
Then there’s the food: PinKU sticks to only 11 dishes and they don’t have a back room for storage—everything is delivered that day. So it’s immediately fresh and very delicious. And even though the day-of delivery concept could bump up their pricing, their lunches are very affordable with sushi rolls or jumbo shrimp dishes in the $4-6.50 range, pot stickers in the same range. If this review sounds uncharacteristically gushing from us, it’s because we pretty much fell in love with the look and food of PinKU on our visit. And the service was top notch, too. Get over there when you can.
PinKU, 20 University Ave NE, MPLS; pinkujapanese.com