Tasty Noodle House - A First Look

I won't deny being pretty excited when I found out that a restaurant named Tasty Noodle House was taking the place of Yu's Garden. Could it be? THE Tasty Noodle House, home of my favorite Tianjin Baozi! I drove past on Monday and saw the Grand Opening sign was up, but the place wasn't open.

As luck would have it, the next day Lily, whom I hadn't seen in a while asked me if I had some time for lunch. So I mentioned checking this place out to see if they had opened yet.....it would be great to have someone fluent in Mandarin. Lucky us, they were open...their first day of business as a matter of fact. After this....my luck basically ran out.

Turns out that this isn't "that" Tasty Noodle House. Instead the menu here was basically Shanghai style dishes with a strange smattering of Sichuan. Well, in truth we could use a good Su Cai or Shanghai style place and the tea was nice....loose leaf, served in a coffee press.

I saw a favorite dish of mine;  Wined (aka Drunken) Chicken on the menu. Unfortunately, the dish wasn't available. Since we still weren't quite sure what the exact compass of the cuisine here was, we went with the pig ear and tripe "ma-la" (numbing hot).

This was nice and crisp, a bit too much sesame oil, but ok. This wasn't what I would consider Sichuan..... it was "ma" as in there was a slight tingle and very little "la" (spicy). This kind of reminded me of how (Beijing) Spicy (less) City was when we moved to San Diego in 2001.....a regional (non-Sichuan) representation of Sichuan food.

Of course we had to try the Pork Xiao Long Bao.

I can forgive the two XLB leaking malfunctions - you can see on the paper liner the "leakers", after all this was opening day. The wrapper was on the thick side, which would be ok if they had enough of a "pull", but these were too hard. There was not enough soup, though I thought the flavor was pretty much by the book for XLB. Not too sweet and the filling was tender enough.

The pork in the Hong Shao Rou (red braised pork - $10.99) was a bit under cooked, though I do love my bean curd skin.

And as you can tell by the lack of the red lacquer color, the flavor was a bit too mild for my taste. It wasn't bad; it just wasn't Hong Shao Rou as I like it.

Still, the folks here were very, very nice. As you can see, the portion sizes were good......though as is the norm with regards to Chinese food here in San Diego, it's more about quantity than quality.

I also did learn one thing, the XLB and Sheng Jian Bao take at least 20 minutes here.

Being that I wanted to try the place one more time before doing a post, I returned. As soon as I entered the door I ordered the SJB.

And the Drunken Chicken ($6.99) of course. This time they had it. The portion size was quite large and it was much more meat than bones.

The wine flavor was quite strong, which, while not everyone's cup of tea, I like. The chicken was meaty, though a tad over-cooked and while it was on the salty side I kind of liked it. For me, it was the best item I had here.

About a good 20 minutes later; out came the SJB.

Something must have gone awry during the cooking of these as the dough was gummy and rubbery. There was also too much oil brushed on these making adding a layer of greasiness. To add insult to injury, these were also somewhat burnt and the bottoms bitter. The filling was too mild in flavor as well. Look at the poor deflated looking baozi at the ends....

You know, for now, since they just opened, and the folks look like they're trying hard I'll give them a pass. I'll return in a couple of months and see how things are doing then.

Tasty Noodle House
4646 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111

Comments

[kat]

:( I hope they improve

[Kirbie]

darn it, I thought this was going to be a branch of the one from LA

[Kirk]

I do too Kat!

It might be Kirbie...because I think the menus at all the different locations are different. I'm bummed that it isn't the same as the one in LA too.

[Faye]

I saw the grand opening sign on Monday as well. Seems like the opened so quickly after they took over the location. The picture of the SJB looks beautiful (minus the burnt bottom). How were the XLB compared to Dumpling Hut?

[Kirk]

Hi Faye - There was so much wrong with the SJB on so many levels....but unless you've really had good SJB, they may not matter to you. I don't consider the SJB at Dumpling Hut any good and these, as sad as they were are better.

[Junichi]

Bummer. I was really looking forward to this. Heard good things about the ones in LA from co-workers.

Also heard the owners of Nishiki ramen backed out after a disagreement with the middle-man over revenue sharing. And the middle-man is going to open up shop anyway. Something fishy going on over there.

[Kirk]

Give it a try anyway Junichi. That's interesting new about Nishiki....weren't they going to do a nationwide expansion?

[Junichi]

Yes the San Diego location was supposed to be the first of many outposts. Hopefully it pans out but as of right now doesn't look good.

[Kirk]

Well, that's not so great Junichi......

[Jinxi]

Actually this is the chain from Orange County (Buena Park?). We tried it today for lunch and overall thought it was pretty good, actually. The XLB were quite good to me - no leaks, the wrapper was nice and supple, plenty of soup. We didn't get the SJB this time, but the couple who sat at the next table ordered them and they didn't look burnt to me. I'm not very picky about my "mian shi" though, haha. S liked the hong shao rou, he likes it on the less salt-more sugar side being Taiwanese and all.

[Kirk]

Hi Jinxi - Well....as a whole, it might be great for San Diego; but like you think about BBQ...it's like that for me with, well everything. The Hongshao Rou wasn't "red-cooked" enough for my taste....though I base it on Su Cai standards.

[Junichi]

Stopped by last night and tried a few items. Nothing was bad but nothing wowed me either. Beef noodle soup, fried rice and pork belly app were passable. They were out of SJB at 7pm. A few of the XLB had leaked out the soup. I think Red Moon does a better job. Best thing was the grilled potstickers. Tons of soup inside and nice crunchy char. Service was friendly and efficient. Place was full when we left. The menu is quite extensive so I'll be back to try more items.

[Kirk]

I'm not a big fan of either XLB Junichi.....I've been recommended a couple of items I'll try on a revisit soon.

[Junichi]

Yeah once you have XLB at DTF the bar is set too high. Those guys have it nailed down to a science!

[Kirk]

Actually, I'm not the biggest fan of their XLB either Junichi....I find that while the wrapper is nice and thin, the dough is usually a bit over-worked.