Yuen: From bubble tea to blind boxes, Asian pop culture is having a moment in Minnesota

At Moona Moono, a new Minneapolis boutique for all things cool and Asian, teenagers wander in asking where they can find the “jelly cat.” It’s a wobbly heap of vegan gelatin, shaped like a cat (because: cuteness), and it sort of dances when you shake it on a plate. Then you eat it.

Demand for this jiggly feline, popularized on TikTok, is just one example of how social media is collapsing the distance between East Asian trends and a voracious American market. Retail ventures like Moona Moono are seizing on the global virality of Asian pop culture.

In this light-filled corner store (the former Paper Source in Uptown) you can get recommendations on Korean beauty masks, touch Japanese stationery, hold a Hori Hori gardening knife in the palm of your hand, and treat yourself to a peach tea ashotchu — a summery iced tea with a shot of espresso that’s all the rage in Seoul.

“It used to be that trends would move West to East,” said the store’s owner, Angie Lee, citing historic examples ranging from McDonald’s to Britney Spears. “Now you’re seeing trends move East to West.”

In Minnesota, it’s never been easier to access Asian and Asian American food and culture. The number of bubble tea and mochi donut stands, hot pot and Korean BBQ restaurants, Daiso shops (Japanese dollar stores), Asia-based bakeries, Japanese-style claw machine arcades and retailers that sell Labubu blind boxes has exploded in the past year or two alone.

In Uptown, you can order spiked boba tea and Taiwanese street food at L2, an Asian American speakeasy. At the Eat Street Crossing food hall on July 5, you can jam to the beats of Vietnamese EDM as part of Saigon Nights.

But save your appetite for the following weekend. On July 11-13 at the Mall of America, you can check out Panda Fest, billed as one of the largest outdoor Asian food festivals in the United States.

As a middle-aged Asian Minnesotan, I’m thrilled — and stunned.

Some 25 years ago I lived in Taiwan, the birthplace of bubble tea. The chewy tapioca balls and iced milk tea, slurped through a fat straw, became my go-to snack. I dreamed of opening a boba shop in the Midwest, but quickly came to my senses. I reasoned: White people would never go for this.

Well, geez, was I wrong (or maybe just decades ahead of my time).

Michael Bui, 51, can attest to how dramatically palates have changed. Growing up in Eden Prairie after his family immigrated from Vietnam, he remembers his mother baking him a cake made with pandan — a tropical plant often found in southeast Asian cuisine — to share with his classmates.

“They hated it and threw it away,” said Bui, who is still able to recall the sight of whole cake slices discarded in the trash can.

Now in the same suburb of Eden Prairie, he owns the relaunched Chinese bakery, Keefer Court at Asia Mall, where pandan cake regularly sells out.

Bui, who also owns Pho Mai and Bober Tea in the Asia Mall, is planning to open a new Asian shopping center early next year at the Northtown Mall in Blaine. Asia Village will feature another Pho Mai restaurant and the Taiwanese bakery and cafe 85°C. Concepts to breathe new life into old malls with Asian merchandise are also in the works in Burnsville and Maplewood.

But can the Twin Cities sustain all of these new retail hubs?

“It is a bet, but it is a calculated bet,” said Bui. “We thought Asia Mall would be popular, and it’s blown our minds how successful it’s been.”

To be clear, the Asian wave we’re experiencing is not unique to Minnesota. Lana Truong, the Minneapolis-based food influencer behind the Instagram account @minne.eats, says she’s seen similar trends take off in many other parts of the country. She said Chicago is often a good predictor of the sort of Asian food items that will surface in the Twin Cities in about a year or two.

“The popularity of these Asian businesses is not necessarily new, but it is to Minnesota,” she said. “It’s trendy everywhere. I think we’re just noticing it more as Minnesotans because we don’t get the shiny new stuff all the time.”

Truong comes from a family of Vietnamese restaurant royalty in the Twin Cities, including Caravelle (which her grandfather founded) and Pho 79. Her uncles owned the now-shuttered Ngon Bistro and Señor Wong in St. Paul.

Truong’s decision to become an influencer is personal; the 27-year-old can bring visibility to Asian-owned businesses that she hopes will keep the establishments humming with customers.

Today Truong is ecstatic that the next generation of chefs are expanding how people think of Vietnamese cuisine, pointing to Hai Hai’s Christina Nguyen, who won a James Beard Award for best chef in the Midwest. Beyond that, Truong says Korean barbecues and hot pot places offer diners a unique experience, which fuels the buzz.

“People want to do more than just eat,” she said. “They want to have that sense of fun or whimsy, and one way to do that is to cook at your table.”

When Lee, the owner of Moona Moono, first started talking about the concept of opening her shop, many reacted with a weary acceptance that Minnesotans would have to wait.

“People used to say things like, ‘It takes three to five years for things to make it here from the coasts,’” she recalled. “What is changing this significantly is social media. A 12-year-old here is seeing all the same things that a 12-year-old in New York, San Francisco and L.A. are seeing. They just don’t have a way of accessing it.”

A former marketing maven in the corporate world, Lee first envisioned that her store and coffee shop would be popular with young women. But the appeal of her shop transcends age and gender. What her customers do have in common is a curiosity to discover something new and delightful.

I shared with her my secret worry: What if this sudden obsession with Asian things is just a fad? Lee said it’s tricky line to walk.

She doesn’t want to exoticize Asian culture; she believes the trends — from innovations in Korean beauty products to “kawaii” products that exude cuteness — are simply becoming part of American culture. Just like everyone knows what Ikea is. (We don’t call it “a Scandinavian furniture store.”)

“Being Asian in America is no different from being anything in America,” she said, as shoppers of every race milled about in her store.

Cool things that happen to be Asian, she says, are for everyone.