Cheng: At Vinai, chef Yia Vang rewrites the Hmong American playbook

The wood-burning grill that takes center stage of an open kitchen is a gleaming, magnificent beast flanked by two bumper car-sized wheels — a hangar for various meats, engulfed in flames that swell like bonfires. Cooks flip the hissing meat, inhaling smoke as it chars, watching closely like medieval blacksmiths. On a recent Friday, on the grill were pork chops, as thick as tomes of “War and Peace,” their edges caramelized.

The grill evokes ferocity from chef Yia Vang, who captures and cooks wild animals on the Outdoor Network show “Feral.” It also belies the influence of Ban Vinai, the refugee camp in Thailand that was Vang’s home before his family fled for the United States.

In the dining room, away from the kitchen, there are visual reminders of Ban Vinai. My colleague Sharyn Jackson described how after speaking with Vang as the restaurant was about to open: “Every detail means something, from the centerpiece wall tiled with gray zigzagging lines that emulate the corrugated metal walls of the family’s refugee camp home. Huge wooden triangles dangle from the ceiling, shaped like the pitched roof that crowned their house. A cinder block room divider calls up the makeshift barbecue Vang’s father built in their St. Paul backyard when they first arrived.” They are striking visual motifs that should not be lost on diners.

At Vinai, the Minneapolis restaurant that Vang dreamed up more than four years ago — and at last made a reality this summer, when it opened in the burgeoning Northeast corridor — there’s little to suggest ferocity. When the restaurant is in full throttle, a sprightly Vang may appear in the dining room, setting plates, greeting diners on the way back to the kitchen, leaving them with his everyman charm.

This may be why Vinai’s food is in fact so approachable despite the menu’s imposing headers and descriptors. “Contains fish sauce” is an allergen note affixed to nearly every dish. It can feel like a warning, too. But its funk is more rounded than sharp, coating many of the dishes with an umami that envelops invisibly, like a fresh coat of wax on a Camaro. There is heat, too, though not copious amounts. Rather, an array of sauces allows diners to choose their own adventures. Mine was Happy Tiger — a pale, bright relish not unlike chutney, made from banana peppers and pineapple.

I applied it on lamb hearts, an imposing-sounding dish that took me three visits to muster the courage to order. I wish I hadn’t waited so long. The lamb is gently chewy outside, custardy within, and meaty — with only a whiff of game. You may eat it any way you wish — commando; or with a lettuce wrap and rice noodles, dribbled with the provided nam prik, a funky lime-based chile sauce.

The skewers — both the lamb and a less compelling catfish one — cross borders, but many of the dishes are coyly referential. Those are also among Vinai’s strongest. “Sardines,” from a section called Khoom Noj, or snacks, recall Vang’s favorite after-school snack. The fish (actually mackerel) are instead daintily presented in a tin, crowned with herbs and flowers. Take a bite of sardine and wrap it in sticky rice, as Vang did in his youth, and note how gently briny, lilting and rich the combination is. It’s truly a revelation.

So are the braised meat soups, or Nqaij Hau, an icon of Hmong family meals. They’re served in a worn steel pot the size of a motorcycle helmet, a vessel for broth as thin yet as deeply flavored as good consommé. It’s softly fragrant, too, thanks to a 24-hour braise. My favorite among the two is the beef rib, where the meat falls off the bone with little resistance.

Given that Vang’s cooking is rooted in the Midwest, he references staples that may feel a little more familiar. But they are not concessions.

Consider the shrimp and pork toast, which may seem like a paean to dim sum but is wholly a product of Vang — thanks to the funky apricot chili that elevates it to something new; the deviled eggs, properly heady with dill and crispy (if slightly limp) shrimp; the chilled rice noodles that sound inconsequential yet strike the right balance of acid, heat and sweetness. You shouldn’t feel any less adventurous ordering these.

Nor should you suspect that the lava cake, one of Vinai’s two desserts, is a cop-out. Yes, there’s that ceremonious spill, but there’s also chili crisp that’ll make your lips (comfortably) tingle and toasted milk ice cream, a callback to White Rabbit candy, a staple childhood treat.

Not every “staple” dish at Vinai is successful. Curry rice ball, with garlic cream cheese and blue crab, is a callback to cream cheese wontons, and it’s forgettable. New York strip makes an expected appearance, and while cooked to a ruddy pink and stained with chili oil, it lacked verve — a clear second fiddle to that juicy, impeccably moist pork chop, a Sakura breed glazed with tamarind lemongrass.

And on two occasions, grilled fish fell flat. Butterflied, split and grilled, the fish — a dorade — is sauced two ways, Green Empress and Red Dragon. In presentation, it’s an homage to Gabriela Cámara’s Grilled Red and Green Fish, a staple at her restaurant Contramar in Mexico City. In reality, the two versions were indistinct and unlively, marred by fish that’s cooked until mushy and dry.

Vang has been serving different takes of whole fish at Union Hmong Kitchen, his first independent foray into the culinary scene. There, he subverted Minnesotans’ expectations about Hmong food, vending accessible but uncompromising takes on staples like Hmong sausage and purple sticky rice in their snug plastic jackets. The $35 he charged for whole fried branzini was one of the menu’s best-kept secrets (and one of the worst things to eat wedged between diners at a communal table), delivering a payoff (crisp skin, moist flesh, compellingly sauced, etc.) well worth the expense. Which makes this dorade — one of the few missteps on the menu — a bit of a letdown, given the kitchen’s transgressions with other dishes were ironed out as the restaurant hit its stride.

The eggplant dip, for example, was murky and runny the first time I tried it but less so the second; mustard greens, courtesy of Vang’s family farm, at first were wilted and stringy, graduating to a softer, more yielding texture the next time. The Hilltribe chicken, once aggressively dry, was more judiciously cooked during my most recent visit. And the once greasy and clumpy crabby fried rice was in fine form when I ordered it again, where each morsel of rice was dewy, not sodden, with fat.

Food notwithstanding, the hospitality displayed by servers, guided by general manager Jonathan Janssen, feels like it’s been finessed over the course of a year or two, not months. And even when Vang is not in, the kitchen hums as reliably as that $31,000 grill — a testament to his chef de cuisine, Timmy Truong.

It’s also a testament to the stories Vang has been telling since the days when Union Hmong Kitchen was a pop-up at a Minneapolis cidery, a time when capturing the rich foodways of an oppressed culture seemed like a distant reality. Here’s to a new chapter.

⋆⋆⋆ highly recommended

Address: 1300 NE. 2nd St., Mpls., vinaimn.com

Hours: 5-10 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 5-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

Recommended dishes: “Sardines,” roasted eggplant, shrimp + pork toast, grilled lamb heart, double cut pork chop, braised beef rib, crabby fried rice. Order all the sauces, too.

Prices: Snacks range from $5 to $12 for the sardines; rice, $4 for a side to $22 for crabby fried rice; vegetables $15-$18; “it’s just us” dishes $15-$19; grilled meat (serves 2-3), $26 for chicken to a $45 New York strip; braised meats are $28 (chicken) and $36 (beef rib); desserts $14.

Beverages: A robust and inventive bar program, thanks to an assist by Steady Pour, as well as a serviceable roster of wine and beer, including a nod to the previous tenant, Dangerous Man Brewing.

Tip or no tip: Standard tipping applies. There are no surcharges.

Noise level: Comfortable, even when the dining room is full.

Worth noting: The menu is built for sharing; bring your adventurous dining companions. Don’t be shy when ordering or asking questions; the servers are excellent guides.

About restaurant reviews: The Minnesota Star Tribune’s restaurant critic visits restaurants multiple times with different dining companions. He attempts to dine anonymously, and the Minnesota Star Tribune always picks up the tab.

What the stars mean:

⋆⋆⋆⋆ Exceptional

⋆⋆⋆ Highly recommended

⋆⋆ Recommended

⋆ Satisfactory

Jon Cheng is the Minnesota Star Tribune’s restaurant critic. Reach him at jon.cheng@startribune.com or follow him on Instagram at @intrepid_glutton.