Bruce K.
Yelp
My wife brought me to Noona for a date night and it was such a treat. Walking in you can see decorated chandeliers. When looking closer at it, it reminded me of being on a ship, but at the same time a hunting lodge which goes exactly the theme of the restaurant. We had reservations, so we were immediately seated. I ordered the Asian Medicine (Penicillin) drink which was very tasty, sort of reminded me of honey mixed with water.
We had a gameplan when coming here. We knew what we wanted to try and we stuck to it! Even though we knew that Noona is known for their steaks (I mean, Meat..) we decided for us to try the most amount of stuff we wanted to stick to just appetizers. Thus, we ordered from the appetizers:
Oysters (Dozen, half + half) - I believe half were from Chesapeake bay and the other Long Island? I enjoyed every single morsel.
Beef Tartare - Pretty simple, came with some bread, but the tartare was mixed in with some mustard seeds and well flavored.
Mussels - BY FAR, this is a HAVE TO get appetizer. The bowl came filled, and reminded me of a classic Belgium pot of mussels. I would definitely say that if you were to get any appetizers (other than oysters during oyster season), this would have to be it. The amount that you get along with just the sauce with it to dip your bread in won it over for me.
Blackened Tuna - I enjoyed the salsa that came with this but otherwise nothing too crazy. The tuna was perfectly cooked and was tasty.
For an entree, we decided to share a braised short rib (that caught my eye when glancing on the menu) and as a couple of sides we shared the cheese corn along with some scallops. The braised short rib wasn't bad, glazed, however the downfall for this dish for me were the carrots. They were absolutely way over-salted, like almost the chef forgot that they had already seasoned it and seasoned it twice. However, the short rib itself was great, bit sweet, but the mash potatoes helped with the sweetness.
The cheese corn was pretty great, you can tell that the corn was not from a packet and that they really shave the kernels from real corn. The natural sweetness also bursted out and cut through the cheese. The scallops were also pretty amazing, it was charred and had that nice grilled taste from it. Real simplistic, but it really showed how well it was cooked.
Overall, Noona was great and an amazing addition to downtown Duluth. Would I come back? Absolutely, just for those mussels. Definitely would recommend if you want to try out a Korean flair to the normal steak and seafood restaurant.