Tag Archives: noodles

Chinese, East Village, Restaurant Reviews

Hunan Slurp

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I came to Hunan Slurp with a group of friends, so we were able to sample a bunch of shit. Here’s what we tried:

The “Mala Beef” noodle dish was nice. It was slow cooked shank meat that was really tender. The egg noodles were perfectly cooked.

This dish contained pork and beef, and was served with rice noodles that were similarly perfectly cooked. Also shank meat, cooked very nicely.

This noodle soup was the spiciest on the menu, a pepper beef dish, which was really intense and flavorful. I wish this also contained the shank cut beef, as the stuff in this dish wasn’t as tender as the above dishes.

This next dish was cold “Hunan Charcuterie.” It contained bits of pig ear and tripe, among other nice off-cuts. This was my favorite dish of the day, and easily a contender for top dishes of 2019.

The smoked sausage plate was nice, but I wish it had more crisped texture to it.

This eggplant with “thousand year egg” filling was delicious. I’m generally not a big fan of eggplant, but I loved this. A must try here.

The beef skewer dish had a great cumin aroma, but ultimately the majority of the beef in the dish was chewy and tough. Pass on this one.

Most of the dishes were pretty spicy, so these sweet riblets were a great way to cool down and cut the heat.

We also tried stewed fish noodles, and a potato and duck egg dish (both not pictured) which were also very nice. But the last item I have here for you is winter melon, served warm and savory with ground pork. Very interesting.

Give this place a shot. I liked it.

HUNAN SLURP
112 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10009

Midtown East, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Pho, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Vietnamese

Sai Gon Dep

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Sai Gon Dep is a new pho-focused casual joint by acclaimed former Hanoi House chef John Nguyen. He’s a master at making pho – the best I’ve had outside of Vietnam.

While Hanoi House is focused on northern style beef soup, Sai Gon Dep focuses on southern style chicken soup from the region where John was born.

Although beef soup is still served here (as well as full-on 45-day dry-aged tomahawk chops, available only on weekends – 8/10) and other protein entrees are available on the menu, the main focus is on fowl.

They even have balut, for those looking for either an authentic or Zimmern-esque experience.

At $15 a bowl, these soups are a steal. The rich, hearty poultry flavor is like nothing else I’ve had. Not even the most rich paitan broths come close, and this soup eats much lighter than those salty sweat-bomb bowls at ramen shops.

While the noodles here come with shredded meat and an egg yolk in the broth, you can order a half or whole chicken to go with it.

Pull some meat off the bones and drag it through the ginger chicken fat oil and scallion sauce that accompany the dish, and munch away at the delicious bird between slurps of noodles… or just plop it into your soup.

Honestly, the broth alone is so soul-satisfying and delicious that you might not even need the additional meat. But if you do order the extra chicken, don’t be alarmed: you may get a plate of feet and heads along with your order. Nothing goes to waste here, just like where John was born in Vietnam. The entire bird is used, and that’s why the soup tastes so fucking great.

Keep an eye out. This place opens next week. I was there for a special media preview, and I can’t wait to start eating this more regularly. The chicken pho is a top dish of the year for me.

SAI GON DEP
719 Second Ave
New York, NY 10016

Brooklyn, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Di An Di

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My wife and I went here with another couple, since we had been hearing such great things about the food.

We started with some nice cocktails. My favorite was the mezcal cocktail “smoke between your thighs.”

The best bite of the night, for me, was probably this take on a summer roll.

There’s BBQ pork inside, but also a crunchy turmeric crepe (banh xeo) for texture. Fresh herbs, veg and rice noodles inside round this out to a perfectly balanced starter.

Next up was fried pig tails.

These were great little morsels of deliciousness. The acidic pickles on top cut the fat perfectly.

Now on to the noodles. First, the dry chicken noodles. These were my favorite of the three we tried.

Very aromatic and spicy from the curry leaves and crispy onions. Awesome.

The soups were a bit of alet down, however. The pho was underwhelming, and the bun bo hue was just too light and lacked the meaty and spicy flavors to which I am accustomed.

The bun cha was nice. These are pork meatballs wrapped in spinach and served in a sweet and spicy garlic and fish sauce broth, which you eat with rice noodles.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back, but if you stick to the apps and those dry noodles, you’ll be a happy customer.

DI AN DI
68 Greenpoint Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Chinese, East Village, Restaurant Reviews

886

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I came in here for a quick bite, and left a very happy man. Here’s what I tried:

1) Sausage Party

This is a sausage that’s nestled in a sticky rice bun, but the bun has been fried to achieve a nice crunch outside. Awesome.

2) Fried Chicken Sandwich

Currently on my list of best dishes for the year, this baby is made with perfectly golden fried leg/thigh meat, and has a nice kick to it from the pickled daikon and chili pepper slaw on top. Get this ASAP.

3) Clams

Nicely cooked, good quality seafood. The broth/sauce is great with rice.

886
26 St Marks Pl
New York, NY 10003

Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews, Thai

Pure Thai Cookhouse

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Pure Thai Cookhouse is probably the best Thai restaurant in what I like to refer to as “Thai Town;” the stretch of Thai restaurants from the 40s through the 50s in Hell’s Kitchen.

The place is always jam packed with waits for tables at lunch and dinner time, and we even had to wait 10 minutes to get seated at the odd 2pm time frame (they don’t take reservations). That said, if you decide to come here, be prepared to wait. Also be prepared to sit at a small table, likely on a small stool, and way too close to other diners, as if you were actually eating street food in Thailand. Usually a seating situation like that pisses me off, but I didn’t mind so much at this place.

We started with these crab and chicken dumplings that were on special for $10. They were really nice.

Next up was the Ratchaburi crab and pork dry noodles.

This dish was excellent. The pork itself was so tender and juicy. We were both expecting something dry and tough. The crab was a good portion of quality meat, and the sauce was a delicate balance of sweet and spicy.

I ordered the turmeric beef as my main dish. This came with rice, and it was very tender and flavorful. It looks mega spicy, but it was more like a medium.

My wife ordered the jungle curry, which didn’t seem like a curry dish at all. Our expectation was a saucy dish with a bowl of rice on the side. This came out more like a fried rice dish. Not saucy, but it had really great flavors. We liked this better than the beef.

I definitely recommend this place. Just be ready for a wait and some small seats!

PURE THAI COOKHOUSE
766 9th Ave #2
New York, NY 10019

Chinese, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Little Tong Noodle Shop

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My wife and I stopped in here last week for dinner now that they are open later. I was dying to try this “Shank JB Melt.”

It’s tender beef shank, cucumber, and Beecher’s cheese curds (melty and crisp) on a flaky pancake “crepe.” Kind of like an Asian take on a Philly cheesesteak. Look at how crisp yet melty that cheese is:

This was amazing. I highly recommend this for all you midtown east folks. Perfect lunch item.

We also tried the Mala Dan Dan Mixian noodles. This is a non-soup noodle dish that has a nice spicy and tingly flavor profile to it, with ground pork, peppercorn oil, pickled celery, mustard seeds, pickled mustard greens and peanuts. We also added a tea egg for $2 and it was well worth it.

For dessert we had the rose crystal jelly with black rock syrup, basil seeds, sesame and peanuts. A really light and refreshing way to end the meal.

I definitely recommend this place to everyone, especially those who like noodles. They have nice sandwich items at the midtown location that really shine too.

LITTLE TONG NOODLE SHOP
235 E 53rd St
New York, NY 10022

Banh Mi, Burgers, Pho, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Em

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The owner of Em, Patrick Lin, invited me in to try some of their awesome noodle dishes and sandwich creations. I was really excited about this menu.

We started with some smoothies: the classic avocado, and the watermelon. Both were really refreshing and delicious. HOLY SHIT SOMEONE ARREST THEM BECAUSE THE STRAWS ARE PLASTIC!

Then we moved right on to the sandwiches.

The first one I hit was this bacon egg and cheese banh mi sandwich:

This is perfect. It has all the familiar flavors of banh mi, but with bacon, egg and cheese to go with it. That’s a winning combo. I could eat this every day, so this was well worth the hour-long subway ride out here to Bensonhurst.

Next up was the banh bi burger.

This is actually the one “burger” that I would almost prefer to be served without cheese. This one has provolone, but I didn’t think it was necessary (clearly some might love it though). The bright, fresh herbs and acidic pickled slaw are really all you need, except for a sauce or mayo. This, too, was really tasty – cheese or no cheese.

Next, we moved on to the soups.

Hu Tieu is a pork based broth with pork rib, ground pork, and a mix of seafood (shrimp, fish balls, etc). This was light and flavorful. My wife liked this one the best out of the two.

The pho here is really nice. The broth is flavorful but not heavy, and the addition of short rib really turns this into a satisfying meal. There’s lots of brisket, eye round and meatballs in there, yet this still manages to stay light. This was my pick between the two.

For dessert, we had Vietnamese coffee tiramisu. This was super creamy and fluffy, and the coffee flavors came through nicely.

I’ll definitely be back here again to eat my way through the rest of the menu. And the good thing is that this place was packed on a Sunday for lunch. People are really digging this place, and so am I.

EM
1702 86th St
Brooklyn, NY 11214

Chinese, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Hwa Yuan

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I went to Hwa Yuan with my wife and a group of friends to celebrate Lunar/Chinese New Year. We had a massive feast, but the very first bite of the meal was the clear favorite for all of us: crispy tangy beef.

This shit was like meat candy. So good that I wanted it by the bucketful.

Next up, Peking roasted duck.

Look at this fellow up close:

Our waiter sliced it up table side:

Here’s a short video of the slicing, set to American New Year music:

I also really liked this plate of sliced mountain yam with ginger, snow peas, goji berries and wood ear mushrooms. The yams tasted like giant water chestnuts.

This plate of eggplant was really tasty too, and I typically don’t love eggplant.

This dish was called “Amazing Chicken.” I really liked the sauce, but I wish the chicken had a bit more texture on it.

This was a roasted and stewed Barramundi fish.

And this bowl of ma po tofu was perfect. Just the right amount of silky texture and numbing spice with heat.

These pea sprouts were tasty too – almost like a cross between spinach and collards, simply steamed with garlic and soy.

Get your asses down to this joint and dig in. The food is really great!

HWA YUAN
42 E Broadway
New York, NY 10002

Japanese, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Soba Noodle Azuma

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THIS IS MY 500th RESTAURANT REVIEW!

Not really a big deal, but I figured I would mention that just for the fuck of it.

My wife and I noticed this joint while walking around the ‘hood, and since we are always interested in trying new noodle joints, we figured we would give it a shot.

We started with an order of fried octopus balls – not ‘pus testicles, but, rather, fried spheres with a creamy octopus-based filling.

These were excellent. Super tender on the inside and crisp on the outside. Hot though, so careful when you pop these balls into your mouth.

I’ve been on a Japanese fried chicken kick lately, so the next thing we tried was their fried chicken appetizer. For just $6.50 this was a great deal. Lots of good, juicy, tender thigh meat with an excellent golden crisp batter on the outside.

The way to go here is ordering their combination platters. My wife got this combo deal that came with soba noodles, sashimi, tempura and some other nice bits.

You can choose hot or cold soba (she picked hot), and small, medium or large orders are all the same price (S=100g; M=200g; and L=300g). Pictured above is a large.

I ordered a combo that came with soba noodles and a chicken and egg rice dish.

I, too, ordered large and hot.

I think, though, the noodles weren’t the star of the show here, as odd as that seems. All the stuff AROUND the noodles was better. Maybe because we picked hot/soup style? Perhaps the best way to go is cold noodles or tsukemen style (you dip the noodles into concentrated and flavored broth/sauce).

One last pair of things to mention: the desserts. My wife’s combo came with a scoop of ice cream. They were out of black sesame so she picked green tea. It was good but not quite sweet enough for my tastes. I generally dislike all things green tea, so take that assessment with a grain of salt.

That said, I was intrigued by the idea of a green tea tira misu, so I had to order it.

It was amazing. The green tea wasn’t bitter – it was sweet. And when we combined the tira misu with the whipped cream and sweet red beans in one bite, the flavors were outstanding. I highly recommend this for dessert.

SOBA NOODLE AZUMA
251 W 55th St
New York, NY 10019

Chinese, Midtown West, Restaurant Reviews

Chong Qing Xiao Mian Noodle House

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The quest for great noodles never seems to end in NYC, but when a really great new joint lands in your lap, that quest seems to get shoved to the side while you explore everything the new place has to offer.

My wife and I were walking around one Sunday when we stumbled upon a brand new restaurant with a sign out front displaying an impressive and tasty selection of noodle dishes.

Chong Qing Xiao Mian is a mouth full for a westerner with no tonal linguistic skills, so I like the fact that they just call themselves “Noodle House” for short. I snapped that menu photo and made a mental note that we wanted to try it (we had just eaten).

A week later we went back and loved it. I ordered the homemade beef noodles, and I chose the “peel” style noodle, which is thicker and wider than “facet,” which is more like spaghetti.

Most dishes here are soups, not dry noodles. Generally I like dry better, but here the soups are king. The broth is much better than Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles or Xian Famous. It’s earthy, and muddy with rich spices that lend just the right amount of tingly heat to the dishes. Yet it isn’t dotted with thick, coarse, dry flakes of pepper or numbing peppercorns. It’s strained just enough.

The noodle quality is fantastic as well, easily rivaling Xian Famous. The only drawback for me was the protein itself; the beef. The menu said tenderloin, but it was more like oxtail. That’s fine, but there wasn’t a lot of it, and much of it was the gelatinous or tendon style of meat. Not what I expected when ordering tenderloin. A few other minor hits to mention: there is no parsley (as the menu says); it’s all cilantro, and a few other things you’ll want to ask about to make sure you know what you’re getting. I chalk these things up to translation errors. No big deal.

My wife got the duck noodles.

These were great too, but you need to be patient to pick through the chopped duck and work your way around the small bones.

Another cool thing about this place: 9% discount if you pay in cash.

On a second trip, we started with some fried dumplings. These were excellent.

Three noodle dishes went around this time. First was the Mala noodles (facet style), with ground pork:

Next was the vegetarian spicy dry noodles:

And last, the “Streaky Pork,” which is pork belly:

I think the way to go here is with one of these three dishes. The veggie dry noodles were absolutely delicious. Even without a meat element I was satisfied and full. The other two bowls were absolutely amazing, and it would be tough to choose a favorite between them.

I can’t wait to go back for round three of noodles and try some of the other side and app items, like the seasoned egg, duck wing and steamed buns.

I highly recommend that you go here before it gets too well known and overcrowded with lines out the door. It WILL happen.

CHONG QING XIAO MIAN NOODLE HOUSE
796 9th Ave
New York, NY 10019