Had the #1 Noodles today. Very good noodles, very spicy, would have loved it with added pork. Will try the dan dan noodles next.
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Yes, I would like a meaty version, too, or some meat side dish that you can combine with the #1 (just as Geneās lamb skewers work very well with their #4).
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Thanks for the recommendation; I had a bowl of this for lunch yesterday, and it was very satisfying. My favorite version of this dish around Boston is still the one at Sichuan Gourmet Framingham, but Noodles Kingās was also very enjoyable.
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Tried an order of the pork dumplings yesterday. Very good, with a nice ginger soy sauce, and I added some of their hot sauce as well. Still need to try the dandan noodles and the wonton in chili oil.
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I beat you to it and had the Sichuan Spicy Dan Dan noodles, #6 (from menu pictured above), today. I liked them a lot. Thereās a slight similarity to the flavors and the toppings of the wonton in chili oil (#10), but all that means is that this is very good, too. This dish uses standard, tubular noodles (as does #5), but nicely springy. We also had the obligatory #s 1 &10, and also ā just to confirm that they are both consistently flat the two buns of #s 16 and 17. Noodles and dumplings are the way to go here, not buns.
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I meant cylindrical noodles (like thin spaghetti), not tubular.
Have eaten here several times since I last posted. Referring to the menu pic I posted above, #1 and #10 are still my favorites. Iāve had #10 in soup form and in chili oil form, and much prefer the dryer chili oil version. I recently had the #4, and it was almost aggressively bland ā nicely gamy slices of lamb on a bowl of both their hand-pulled-sliced (seems oxymoronic, I just realized) noodles and cellophane noodles in a milky broth, with occasional slivers of this and that (bamboo shoots, mushrooms, etc.) scattered sparsely, and a sprig of cilantro on top. It was comfort food in the sense that congee can be, but I did find myself wishing for, perhaps, a shred of ginger, or at least a pinch of salt.
If you go early, you have to order at Dragon Bowl next door. The hand-written sign announcing this system on a visit two months ago was turned around after Iād ordered, to reveal the following tantalizing backside:
The next time I was there, I asked for these items, but they pleaded ignorance.
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Aw man, I would pay fifteen bucks just to find out what pita bread soaked in lamb broth tastes like
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āPita breadā soaked in soup is a dish available at other places. Home Taste in Watertown has it, for example.
huh, this dish has totally escaped me, so thanks. Iāll need to look into this one.
Youāll need to adjust your ideas of what āpita breadā is, though. I think some Chinese restaurants have settled on that description of wheat-based-baked-goods as one likely to resonate here.
Some of these dishes are flat breads cut into strips that are then treated as noodles. (Thereās a Sri Lankan dish, Kothu Roti, thatās philosophically similar.) Others are leavened breads soaked in soup (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paomo). What Noodles King was offering will remain, I suppose, a mystery.
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so much to learn, so little time. thanks for the pointers.
My guess is that itās a dry flat bread which you break into pieces, return to the kitchen, and they pour soup over it. Geneās has always had this. Iāve only had it once and remember it as being very bland. There are some photos on FB.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100315962430558&type=3
(Iām not sure why HO decided to show me this as new 8 months later.)
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Iāve been hibernating for multiple reasons of my own, and (not to worry) Iāll return to my cave shortly. But, after being vaxxed and waxed (although still self-haircut ā getting those stray long hairs that my eyebrows have taken to sprouting ā with unseemly vigor over the pandemic, I might add ā is a nightmare), I rolled out to my favorite area of Boston ā the Longwood Medical Area. While there, this is what I saw:
Notes:
- passing_thru, I draw your attention to the new #15.
- passing_thru, having raised you to the skies, I must now cast you back to earth. When asked about #15 the one man manning the counter said āNot now. Lamb only good in cold weather. It make you too hot.ā I could see his point. An already hot passing_thru, eating this dish in July, might get way too hot for staid Boston. Imagine the riots!
- Note the change in prices from my photos upthread.
Ok, ok, what did I eat? From the current menu, the #1, as always. And, as always, although variable, it was very, very good both times. Also #10 (as I have before), #18 and #19.
The main reason I rouse myself to post on NK is that I think theyāre in trouble. They could not do the intriguingly named #23 for me on either visit (ānot todayā), and this morning they were all out of all dumplings.
Flock there folks. You guys bust a gut, anyway, eating (man, the stuff some of you pack away in Maine ā I say with naked envy). Would it cost you so much to louse up a liver, kill a kidney, split a spleen, just so youād have an excuse to be in Longwood?
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yay! good to hear from you. donāt stay in your cave so long next time, itās nice to have you around.
I would probably eat that lamb in July anyhow. Whatās the worst that could happen??? Will check again when it gets cooler.
I went back to this place for lunch maybe six weeks ago or so and got the #1 with pork, and what happened was a woman working the counter next door came over and made me the noodles with the older guy in back from Noodle King constantly giving advice on what to do. She just kept going over and checking with him, and I have to say that while the bowl was filled with good amounts of spice, delicious pork and well cooked bok choy she also kind of messed up the noodles and they were really undercooked. I was sort of disappointed.
I was hoping it was a one off, and it sounds like you got good stuff. Promising! But the general lack of items is worryingāI wonder if the main guy just canāt cook everything the way he used to? Though I donāt know why youād add a new menu item if that was the case.
I do have to go over to Longwood in the near future. Maybe Iāll swing by and try it again and see whatās up.
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The two times Iāve been there recently, it was just the one man ā the main chef ā doing everything. He slapped the noodles on the counter with satisfying thwacks, and they were cooked to a nice chewy consistency. The spice levels were low, though, and Iām guessing itās to attract more business.
Itās a sad commentary on the Boston food scene that a place like this in a busy area with an international crowd of eaters does as little business as it does. Yesterday there were lines at all the wrong places (Dunkinā Donuts in particular), but my order was #2 at NK, and when I went to get my food 15 minutes later, they were all the way up to #3. Even their sister establishment Dragon Bowl (weirdly an entirely mall-conventional steam table place) was doing brisk business. One passerby ā who seemed Jamaican ā actually went up to the NK chef and talked to him in Chinese. I was marveling at the cosmopolitanism of Boston. Then she went around the corner and got herself a Philly cheese steak.
ETA: As you mention, and as a comparison of the old (upthread) and new menus shows, the #1 is newly available with pork. I prefer it without ā but the amount of tasty pork you get for two extra bucks is hard to resist. Yesterday I got it with pork, took it home, scraped off the pork (itās all piled on top) and put it away for later eating, leaving only a few tiny shreds to mix in with the noodles.
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well, thatās good. I was hoping the older guy wasnāt done and just turning the business over to the Dragon Bowl staff! Iāll sure go again soon and hope that he cooks my noodles.
It is disappointing to see people order up gloppy orange chicken at Dragon Bowl while Noodles King is right there. There really is no accounting for taste.
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Thanks, @GretchenS. As the allusion to Maine above might have suggested I have been quietly following your recent eating.
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One of the main reasons for this is the amount of time that freshly prepared food takes to make. I get 30 minutes for lunch, I canāt spend 5 of it getting back and forth from the Galleria, and then wait 15 minutes for my food. You can see how the math just doesnāt work. Both places are owned by the same folks, and the Dragon Bowl, though it has the standard steam table Chinese, also has excellent specials, and a very well made vegetarian Ma Po Tofu. My usual order there is the Ma Po Tofu and one of the various specials (though I will say their version of Orange chicken is better than most). I think the food at Noodles King is far superior, and well worth the wait, I just donāt often have the time to enjoy it (and as I work in the Longwood area, Iām not really interested in going down there to eat on my days off).
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