There are a lot of reasons a place might repeatedly close down and re-open with a different name. I’m not here to get into all the details of the shady practices of many cash only places around the city. I’m here to talk about food.
A very, very long time ago, I started off on a hand pulled noodle journey. I never fully finished my hand pulled noodle-palooza, and wanted to rectify this ASAP. So I headed out with Dessert Zombie and Cheese in tow to hit up the last two places on the list…
except one of them keeps changing their name and changing the quality of the product. Grrr. Chinatown is a fickle beast, she is!
What I’d remembered most about this place, however, was the roasted chili oil, which was present on the tables. I still enjoyed that. I got the house special – topped with a fried egg, and lots of different types of animals inside, I enjoyed my bowl just fine. The noodles were a little on the thick side, but tasty enough – though the broth fell extremely flat, and lacked in flavor greatly. DZ agreed, dousing his in as much hot sauce (chili oil AND Sriracha) as he could get his hands on, while Cheese, who’d ordered a standard beef bowl, lamented the lack of flavor in the broth.
As is my custom, though, we also ordered fried dumplings. These were really tasty – fried almost expertly, with a good crisp on the skin, and packed with flavor inside – juicy meatwads, tons of garlic chives and pork flavor (though the color belied this fact; it was brown and I kept saying it looked like beef, while the boys kept telling me it tasted like pork – yeah, communication was at a low at that point since I didn’t say it tasted like beef, just that it looked like it… anyway). Really tasty, and while it didn’t need a dip in the chili oil, I enjoyed that all the same.
While the hand pulled noodles were satisfactory, and the fried dumplings pretty freakin’ good, I doubt I’d go back for the noodles. Especially because the next stop on our tour was literally right around the corner…
CheeeeEEEEse says
DZ should have just poured the hot chili oil straight into the bowl. He only had to go back 2 or 3 more times.
Dumplings here were really good, and super cheap, which is always a plus.
Dessert Zombie says
Noodles just otay. The untasty broth could not be saved by the red sea. Too bland for my liking. Dumplings were a surprising delight at this place.
hungry says
Did the egg have a runny yolk?
Feisty Foodie says
I believe mine did, though I think DZ’s did not.