When we are able to escape and grab a real lunch (i.e. no sandwiches, etc) these days, we often look for places were we can get back to the office in decent time. I'd been wanting to try the lunches at Noble Chef since my mediocre roast duck visit. So we decided to make our way down to Balboa.
We arrived pretty much at opening time. So the place was empty and it pretty much stayed that way for the entire meal.
Which I guess doesn't bode well.
We looked over the lunch special menu, deciding what to order. In the end, Big Daniel left it up to us. I ordered three dishes, Calvin two.
It interesting how different folks order….more on that later.
Things started out with a pretty terrible egg drop soup. Super salty, weird flavor to the broth, not quite chicken…. and of course the frozen peas and carrots.
If folks want to eat lunch with me; they are going to have at least try some of the dishes I order. Like the salted fish and chicken fried rice.
This didn't have enough salted fish in this, so the funky-salty-savory tones were minimized. The rice was decently done, the chicken tasteless, no wok hay.
Calvin ordered two items I really don't at these type of places; mainly because you can do better at home.
The first being the Rice Porridge with Pork and Preserved Egg.
Not a whole lot of pidan, the pork was really tough, and this needed more (some) white pepper, salt, ginger, and anything else to just bring up the flavors…….the porridge was really bland.
Calvin also usually orders some kind of vegetable. Selecting the "House Stir Fried Vegetable" is not usually a good pick at places like this though.
On this day; it was a plate full of underseasoned broccoli….the typical "Calabrese" kind, not gailan or anything similar, with maybe a single sliced canned mushroom and some slivers of carrot thrown in. Not a stellar dish.
I ordered the Fish with Black Bean Sauce.
The fish wasn't terrible, no off or muddy flavors. The cooking technique was terrible however, as the fish was dry and lacking the nice velveting of a well prepared specimen. The onions were over cooked, the flavor of the black bean sauce was too mild, and there were gloppy lumps to be found in the dish. At least the rice was decent. As for the portion size……well, we were glad we ordered quite a few dishes.
I also ordered the Salt and Pepper Pork Chop.
Finally, a decent dish! The pork was nicely fried, still moist, the batter crunchy…nice hints of garlic, decent salt, probably a nice dose of MSG as well……but at this point of the lunch…..it was a good thing. I'd have this again.
This "version" of the Noble Chef, while totally different in terms of regional cooking, makes me long for the previous versions. It makes me wonder how dinner is and if the place is long for this world? Not a single other customer than us during the whole meal. That can't be good.
The Noble Chef
6159 Balboa Avenue
San Diego, CA 92111
