This and that from here and there

A trip around the world is easy at Global Market and Food Hall

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I was thrilled when I first heard about the opening of the Global Market and Food Hall, back well before the pandemic hit. The idea — the marriage of an Asian supermarket and a mall food court, populated with an array of Asian cuisines serving something close (or closer) to what one would find in an Asian street market than what’s typically found in an American strip mall Chinese spot — would be groundbreaking for Madison. 

The pandemic slowed the opening of Global Market and doubtless has kept potential customers away from the food court since its opening in August. I was one of them. I haven’t dined inside a restaurant since March (though I have eaten outside and taken advantage of takeout and delivery). The many mini-restaurants that populate the food hall have online ordering, takeout and most also offer delivery, or customers can head in, order, and take their food to-go. 

But the true delight of a global food hall is to be there, wander all the counters, gawk at the menus, debate your choices and order this and that from here and there. No need to restrict yourself to one country, cuisine or menu! Spring rolls from one vendor; noodles from the next. Before you leave, stop in at the grocery store side — huge and clean and well organized.

That’s what I wanted to do at Global Market and Food Hall, and yesterday, I did it. About 1 p.m. the parking lot of the former Toys “R” Us near East Towne at 2161 Zeier Road held more cars than I’d been expecting, but the interior is so spacious that everything felt sparsely populated. 

Depending on your comfort with indoor dining, you may find the large eating area, ringed with the food court vendors, empty enough to choose dine-in. There were a handful of tables occupied, but most of the eating area felt unpopulated, like an airport at 3 a.m.

This isn’t a review of the food. I’m not sure how, even in normal times, I would approach a review of the food hall. Each stall deserves its own review. And oftentimes the menus are not short. And some stalls seem to have sub-restaurants within them. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I made an initial tour of the vendors, arranged in a horseshoe around the dining area. ZenZen Taste was closed; and C Coffee is closed on Thursdays. This still leaves a lot to peruse.

Hmong Kitchen has one of the smaller menus, focused on Hmong specialties like stuffed chicken wings and Hmong sausage with sticky rice. Dumpling House has dumplings with six different fillings, a selection of stuffed buns, and noodle soups. 

Shen Sir Fry House offers hot pot that they make for you instead of you making it yourself at the table. There’s the usual large number of ingredient options and a choice of one, two or three pounds of food.

Nice Flavor Stir Fry House has a large Chinese menu with dishes that are not at the menu at, say, Imperial Garden — boiled pork kidney in sesame oil, for instance — with a few nods to American-Chinese favorites like kung pao chicken. Captain Frank Seafood Boil is a familiar concept, as there are a few other restaurants around town that offer these boiled seafood repasts by the pound — Mad Seafood Boiler downtown and Ragin Cajun Seafood, also near East Towne.

Red Lion Singapore Grill has another location on Cottage Grove Road with a more expansive menu featuring a lot of sushi. Here, on an abbreviated menu, you can order Singaporean specialties like Hainanese Chicken or the roti canai plaster, a flatbread with egg and potato.

Taiwan Street is an exciting but somewhat confusing vendor area that holds five sub-stalls: Hsinchu Rice Noodle, Saucy Rice, Instant Noodle, Tangyuan House and Saigon Vietnamese Rice Noodle. These are different menus that all appear to be coming from the same kitchen. If you Google “Taiwan Street Madison” or any of the individual sub-restaurant’s names, Seamless and GrubHub and Eat Street menus come up, and all of them seem to be slightly different but most contain menu items from all the Taiwan Street sub-menus. Like I say, exciting but somewhat confusing.

Kawasaki is a Japanese vendor. In addition to ramen, udon, some rice dishes and bento box combos, the menu features omarice, a fried rice omelet.

Sweet Hut is the bakery, and it’s teamed up with a bubble tea purveyor. The buns here, both sweet and savory, are plentiful, and the bakery case is not without the always fun hot dog bun, a brioche-like roll studded with coins of hot dog. 

The latest addition to the vendors is Poke Mi, which launched Jan. 1. It’s a Cambodian-run stall with a few poke bowls but also spring rolls, banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches, pad thai, vermicelli bowls, some grilled meat/rice dishes and “Phnom Penh noodle soup.” Another highlight of this menu is a freshly pressed sugar cane drink.

It is at this point, after the initial tour, that you may stop and say to yourself, “As god is my witness I have no idea what I should do next.” This is where I usually short-circuit, go blank and order a bunch of stuff that doesn’t really go together, and in no way makes a proper meal. I ran true to form yesterday, ending up with spring rolls and banh mi from Poke Mi, numerous dumplings from Dumpling House, and an order of Hainanese chicken from Red Lion.

I couldn’t resist eating the spring rolls from Poke Mi right away so I picked an out-of-the-way table in the dining area. The rolls were fresh and plump and had plenty of refreshing mint and basil, and came with both fish sauce and peanut sauce for dipping. Everything else, too, was good enough to warrant a trip back to try more dishes — and there are so many more I want to try. I’d consider eating it all there, next time. My large dumpling order suffered a bit from my taking it home and re-heating it at dinner.

The three vendors I ordered from all have buzzers to let customers know when their items are ready, so it’s easy to move on to another stall and order more without worrying about missing your order at another place. There are huge pump bottles of hand sanitizer all over the place. 

If you do want to order in advance for pickup or order delivery, know that the menus on the Global Market and Food Hall website for the individual vendors are sometimes missing and often incomplete; better to use this for phone numbers. Googling the restaurant’s name and choosing your favorite ordering platform — most are hooked up with multiple delivery platforms — should yield a more accurate menu. Also check Facebook for market updates.