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