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Mapo Tofu (Ma Po Dou Fu)
November 09, 2011

Lao Wai

Mapo Tofu (Ma Po Dou Fu)

Celia Sin-Tien Cheng

Lao Wai is truly remarkable! It’s the best Chinese food I’ve tasted outside of Asia. Authentic flavor, fresh ingredients and extremely well-executed. I was apprehensive when Mistral Chef-Owner Fredrik Andersson recommended it, mentioning the “Swedish husband, Taiwanese wife team cooking vegetarian Sichuan and Taiwanese cuisine.” But one bite into my first dish, I was a convert. The first good sign for this small eatery was the wait on a weekday evening. Second was the mapo tofu test — if your mapo tofu isn’t good, you’re not a real Sichuan restaurant. To my amazement, the tofu was excellent — firm but not hard, and with a flavor reminiscent of foods from my childhood. I had forgotten that Lao Wai is a vegetarian restaurant because the imitation meat (soy protein) tasted better than some mapo tofu with real meat. The three basis of Chinese cuisine — color, aroma and flavor — were all met in this dish. It’s hard to believe that such fantastic Chinese food exists on an unassuming street in Stockholm. Bravo!

Lao Wai

Luntmakargatan 74
Stockholm
113 51
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Price
$$$
Neighborhood
Norrmalm