Pigging out at Noodle Bar and Steve's Indian Cooking

Now that we're back in city life, and we're not sporting beachwear anytime soon, Mike and I didn't waste a minute to pig out in the Jing.  We spent our Saturday afternoon at Noodle Bar slurping bowls of hand pulled noodles and topped the day off with a fabulous home cooked Indian meal at our friends' apartment! 

Noodle Bar is well...a noodle bar!  Mike ate here a few weeks ago and couldn't stop raving about it, so I was dying to try it yesterday.  I knew I was going to enjoy the experience when we walked in - the place reminded me of a ramen noodle place I ate at while in Kyoto last summer.

The restaurant was small.  It only had 12 seats, which surrounded a U-shaped counter where you can see the chefs make hand pulled wheat noodles in front of your eyes and enjoy the aroma of slow-cooked pork.  Only a few diners were there when we walked in at 2 pm - all of them had their heads down, quietly eating their delicious noodles.

 

The menu was no nonsense.  Basically, it was a checklist of 10 dishes at most.  You can order the noodles to your liking - thin or thick and with different types of beef - brisket, tendon or tripe.  We each ordered a bowl of thick noodles with beef brisket, and 2 sides to accompany our noodles - pickled lily bulbs with wood ear mushrooms and marinated eggs with tofu.  Both sides were yummy!

Here's the bowl of noodles - sooo yummy and hearty!  The best part of the noodles was the broth - it had so many flavors in it, but it wasn't overpowering nor salty. 

After stuffing our faces, we suffered a round of food coma before we got ready for round 2: dinner at Joyce and Steve's house!  If you know Steve, you've probably heard that he's an excellent cook, so when they invited us over for Indian food, we had to say yes!

 

Dinner was excellent.  Steve made 3 dishes - goan-style beef, a spinach dish and my favorite of the night: pork vindaloo.  The vindaloo was by far my favorite!!!  It's a dish that's semi-influenced by the Portuguese, and mainly eaten by Indian Christians as the Hindus and Muslims of India do not eat pork.  According to the recipe Steve gave me, the vindaloo paste consists of cumin, red chilies, cardamom seeds, cinnamon and a laundry list of other spices!

What did Mike think of dinner? I think this picture speaks for itself!  Food coma at its best!