yeah, that totally makes sense. I think that last time I went to Noodles King it maybe took 20 minutes to get my food what with all the checking back and forth, so I can certainly see not wanting to wait. I also get not wanting to go anywhere near your work on your day off!
And as an avowed crab rangoon and American-Chinese food fan, I’m really not even all that averse to gloppy orange chicken. If Dragon King serves up good versions of this stuff, then I sure concede the point.
I absolutely do not want the Noodles King discussion to wander elsewhere, but I was wondering if you’d seen this article. If we want to discuss it we should start a new thread.
It’s a great article.
Huh, no I had missed this one. Thanks for the tip!
Late to this, but thank you for another reminder that I have to get out to that neck of the woods. I’m been really craving some nice thick chewy noodles too.
We’ve had two mixed experiences here lately. Two weeks ago, my wife went there around 4:30 to find them closed. She got some noodles and chicken at the sister establishment next door to find the noodles lukewarm and the chicken cold.
I went there yesterday at 11:30. One person was doing all the cooking at NK, as is normal these days, but a younger man not their long term chef. You still order next door. There was a long line for the steam table food there which I dutifully stood in, only to find that if you’re ordering for NK you can skip the line. (The food here, at this early hour, looked good, especially some beautifully purple, glistening chunks of eggplant, and some fish with enticingly red flecks of pepper. But I had other fish to fry.)
I ordered my usual #1 with pork (as said above, I scrape off the pork and put it to other use, because at $2 extra it’s too good to pass up). My other usual, pork dumplings with chili oil (now #8 on a new, shortened menu), were unavailable, so I got the shrimp and chive dumplings (now #18), with a side of chili oil. These have always been more chive&shrimp than shrimp&chive, but yesterday they were pretty much chive&chive, with only a fleck of shrimp here and there. The wrappers, never thin, were particularly chewy and robust. Still tasty, but a distinct step down from their usual standard. The texture of the noodles was as good as I remembered, but the sauce was little off-balance --vinegary, but low on salt and they now ask if you want it spicy or non-. I said spicy, of course, and they threw some chili sauce on top.
Prices are about 1$ higher per item than last year, a modest increase these days. I was order #4 at 11:30, but order #3 was for four medical people in blue. I was pleased to see this from the NK point of view, but it also meant an even longer wait than usual. While I was waiting, order #5 was placed.
Having eaten there a few times since my last post, let me add their “Shandong Famous Pan Fried Pork Bun” to my enthusiastic recommendations (for others see above, but never miss #1). Juicy, very tasty pork in a bun with a nicely crisp bottom.
I’m astonished that this place doesn’t get the raves that, say, Gene’s does. In its own way it’s just as good. Location?
As I’ve stated earlier in the thread, I would eat there far more often, but I just don’t get enough time at lunch to wait for freshly prepared food.
I hear you. One of the issues is that their chef cooks one order at a time as opposed to observing that the next three orders all want #1, and then cooking three of them simultaneously. Typically, customers order single dishes from them for individual lunches, as opposed to multi-dish orders from multi-customers, so they ought to be able to streamline the process.
But, the food is so good.
I’ve had the food from here three or four times since I last posted a year ago. The food has largely been as good as discussed above and as slow to arrive. Then, ten days ago I had my first so-so dish from them, and an epiphany. I usually order food to go, or food that I partially eat on the spot then take home. As such, I generally order 3 or 4 things at a time and the food does not arrive swiftly. But last week I wasn’t leaving the area for a few hours after lunch so I just ordered some dumplings. They took forever. Meanwhile, though, customers who had ordered noodle soups got their food at a brisk pace. The dumplings are boiled from a frozen state and it is they that seem to hold things up. Try just a noodle soup @kimfair and see how that works out.
Things were not helped by the dumplings being overboiled by the young woman in charge of the cooking after their main chef left the premises. She let them boil and boil, and when I got them their wrappers were gummy and the filling dry.
I posted in the open/closed thread as well, but Noodles King closed up shop sometime in the past week or so, as my last visit to the Longwood Galleria was on Thursday and it was boarded up and advertised as space for rent.
