On Saturday night I was in seventh heaven with the discovery of the Chinese Noodle House. I'd just been to the IMAX cinema to see Avatar in 3D, and was wishing I was back in Bangkok where you could fall out of the cinema and into excellent street stalls like this one.
After being put off by the long queues at another restaurant on my hit list, Mamak, Shakespearemate took us to the Chinese Noodle House. The moment we arrived I knew it was going to be good. There was a real bustle in this out of the way corner of China town and only somewhere with really good food could overcome the fake plastic grape vine hanging from the ceiling and tapestries on the wall.
We ordered far too much food and I'm ashamed to say ate all of it. Above, you can see me tucking into the chicken salad. A big plate of tender shreddred chicken, with a few bits of celery for crunch and a chili sauce. When the plate first arrived at the table I thought it would be very fiery, but the chili was surprisingly mild. The chilled salad had an almost refreshing quality despite the chili.
The restaurant is best known for making their own noodles. There is a small window into the kitchen and during the meal we could see one of the chefs rolling fresh noodles. It was made to look so effortless, but you knew there were years of experience behind each flick of the hand.
We ordered some of the flat noodles stir fried with pork and Chinese cabbage. I'm not sure if it is part of the service for everyone, or because we were incompetent whities with chop sticks, but one of the waitresses came over with a pair of scissors and attacked the plate, chopping the noodles into more manageable lengths. Whatever the reason, I was please she helped out.
In the photos you can also see the sweetcorn and pine nut vegetable dish we ordered. There was a real sweetness to the freshly steamed sweetcorn, again reminding me of the corn you could buy on the streets in Bangkok.
Our final dish was some steamed pork and spring onion dumplings. The pork had a succulent and slightly tangy flavour. There was a very generous twelve dumplings on a split level steamer between the three of us. In the name of research we polished them off.
The service was quick and friendly and when we received the bill it was unbelievably good value. Yes it is a bit rough round the edges, you can't book and I hear can often have long queues. However, on last night's experience I think I've discovered a gem.
Looks bloody amazing!
ReplyDeleteThere is a table with your name on it BE. YOu need to get yourself over here!
ReplyDeletegreat shots mate...only wish we could have profiled the glass grapes somewhere, always next time!
ReplyDeleteThe photos were either: yours, lucky or a good crop. I think some of the blurs are cool.
ReplyDeleteA controversial dish for next time is to order the Chinese Spaghetti Bolognese on the menu. It's not actually called that, but for these purposes it looks like it. It has a horrible photo in the window telling you what it is (I think it's called noodle and meat) and does an a convincing job of making you think you've come to the wrong place. But as the ultimate accompaniment to the plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling, it's a winner.
ReplyDelete