The Noodle Nook is a new restaurant on Smithfield Street in downtown. It is located near the Smithfield Street Cafe, in the location previously occupied by Japan Place. They are fast food restaurant and feature a number of different Asian noodle dishes including Pad Thai, Udon Noodle Soup, Singapore Rice Noodles, Filipino Adobo Chicken over Noodles, Vietnamese Beef Pho Rice Noodles soup, and Chinese Double Pan Fried Noodles. I've eaten there twice. The Pad Thai is good; it's not quite up to what they server at Lemon Grass, but you wouldn't expect quite the same level at a fast food place. The Double Pan Fried Noodles were very good. The menu also features all the standard items that every Chinese restaurant in the area seems compelled to server, such as General Tso's Chicken and Kung Pao Chicken. I'd certainly recommend the Noodle Nook. The food is good, and it's a nice change from the standard Chinese restaurants found on every block of downtown. My only complaint was that the restaurant owners have purchased one of those silly singing fish that you can see on Spenser gifts or on commercials on cable channels. By the time we had finished with our lunch, we were quite sick of the stupid thing singing "Don't worry, be happy" every time someone walked near it (quite frequently, since it was near the registers) and were hoping that one of the employees would accidentally drop it into the hot oil.
Pittsburgh, PA
The Noodle Nook
Jim M. wrote: > > I'd certainly recommend the Noodle Nook. The food is good, and it's a > nice change from the standard Chinese restaurants found on every block > of downtown. > My only complaint was that the restaurant owners have purchased one of > those silly singing fish that you can see on Spenser gifts or on I'd seen this place before and based on Jim's recommendation thought I'd check it out for lunch today. I'll second his comments that it is a nice change from the usual downtown Asian fare. I'll add that their take-out bowls are nice and sturdy. The singing fish was silent today. Perhaps just the battery had been dropped in the hot oil. The story today however was the MAJOR backups at the counter. I ordered my bowl of udon in soup with vegetables at 1:10 and did not get it until 1:35. I wasn't in any real hurry and was more or less content to stand in the heat and watch them cook. But many other people got increasingly edgier as their lunch hour faded away waiting for food. Many had to switch their eat-in orders to take-out because of delays. I commend their goal to cook as much as they can to order (more on that in a moment) but it created problems today. There was one guy with one wok and too many orders backing up Perhaps, however, they were just experiencing a little "Internet rush" and weren't prepared for the crowds. And in his defense, at least he cares about the quality. He let my udon boil until the noodles were cooked properly, even though it meant letting other orders stack up. I'm not a vegetarian but ordered the vegetables because they had cooked some stuff in advance and have a steam table of precooked meats up front they were adding to some of the more popular dishes and they looked kind of oily to me. However, since I watched them cook for 25 minutes I noticed ALL of the broth came out of the same pot. So just be aware that the vegetarian dishes may contain chicken broth. My noodles were good, if not exceptional, by the way. But there's no where else downtown to get a bowl like this for lunch and so I'll probably go back. One last note, as I was standing there I was thinking perhaps I could phone in an order, but just as I said that I heard the telltale beeping of a phone off the hook. Clearly they had taken the phone off the cradle to help get caught up. Jeff