AAAAAARGGGH. I hate car pool lanes! Particularly the ones on the 10 East, past downtown. You can never get on and never get off. Here I am, cruising out to deep, and I mean DEEP, Arcadia, on the search for the perfect chinese breakfast, and I am 5 miles past the last exit lane off it, with a 10 foot wide “no man’s land” complete with large “bumps” to keep you from cutting out of it, and my exit is 1 mile away. Just as I am about to risk a major future wheel alignment, I see a sign saying my exit is coming up, stay to the left. Home free, baby! Yes, until I am fully in the exit and it suddenly says, BUSES ONLY, and off we go, right up into the Metro Bus terminal end of the line. People gawking, buses roaring in and out, me keeping my cool…...... barely. It doesn’t help that when I ask a uniformed employee how to get out of there, he tells me that I should not be there and better get out, fast! Aah, yes, I know that, this is the reason I am asking you? File this in the useless advice category. So 2 left turns and 2 right turns later, I get the hell out and of course find that I am 1 mile past my correct exit and now have a good 12.5 minutes added to the trip to nowhere. Coz this is in DEEP Arcadia, like the nothing around here is interesting or inviting part of Arcadia.

And then we get to Noodle House! 105 F in the shade, and there is no shade. We make a dash for the door. And as soon as we walk in, I know it’s gonna be ok! Is it the wall to wall blow up menu with the dish pictures on the wall? Is it the formica tables and colored “slate” floors? Is it the torn out copy of Jonathan Gold’s review tacked up? Is it because Mike L. says so? Whatever, you just get the vibe.

So we order:
home made soy milk, 1 hot 1 cold. Rich, tasty, good
pork and vegetable bao. Ok we tried to but the owner, a super nice lady, came out and said the pork bao was better, so that’s what we ordered. Was it better? I don’t know, but it was great, crisp pan fried bottom and tender-doughy-chewy steamed upper with a savory pork stuffing
1 twister sandwich, (forget the chinese name) basically a fried churro but light and empty as air, cut in half and wrapped in an ultra-thin crepe, with a sweet and spicy meat and veggie flecked filling
1 veggie, chinese squash: boss lady says they are out of it, try the bok choy, yes ma’am!
1 beef noodle soup: YES! Thick, chewy, hand made hand cut noodles, rich and spicy beef broth. Heaven.

We couldn’t finish the baos so we asked for a to go container. I went over to get a plastic carry out bag and boss lady gave me 5 more baos free! She said ours were over-fried and she wanted us to have better ones. Oh, I forgot, she gave us a free sample of her cold cucumber and mung bean noodle salad. Deelish! Did I say she was nice?!

They do serve breakfast here but it is not too extensive. The menu offers many intriguing items . Can’t wait to try some more of boss lady’s tips. Xie xie ni!

Rachel Ray’s dream is about to come true!

I had an epitome one time in the early wee morning of the hours trying to figure out on what’s the meaning of life. I don’t think I formulated an idea or concept to that.

So I started searching for a place that opens at wee hour of the morning so I can get my mind out of that.

I came across the Noodle House because of the fact that it’s the most eastern restaurant listed on Jonathan Gold’s 2007 version of Essential 99. It’s one of the only few selected Taiwanese places listed in his pitiful list. But I gotta handed to him on at least getting the right places out on the list. Especially this place.

Located in the dead area of Arcadia where it has more auto-body shops in the intersection than any street corners you will ever come across to. It’s right next door to a Fantastic Sam’s. Totally obscure in a forsaken abysmal part of the town.

There is no decor for this place unless you are into those sticky tables and dry plastered walls. Probably about 12 tables with a few booth seats. However, I noticed that a few group of people didn’t like the small tables, so they bunched up two tables together for a group of 5 people. Very inconsiderate of that group if the place was packed, but who is going to argue with those old Taiwanese.

Opened at 7am in the morning to 7pm at night on all 7 days of the week, it was one of the very few that I can find for a good Taiwanese breakfast. Yi Mei Deli comes to my mind out of this, but I want to try something new for a change.

After looking at the simplistic lamented menu, I noticed the breakfast prices was uber cheap! Talking about everything that runs about a dollar something to the most expensive breakfast item of beef roll for $4.50. I was thinking about ordering three items, but it rang up to only $3.50. I felt like a cheapo so I substituted a steam veggie & pork bun for that beef roll.

Boy am I glad I did that.

First I ordered a hot steamed Soy milk and a Yo-tel (Chinese donut, but the translation is called “a stick of butter”) for $3 total. Plus I ordered a beef roll on top of that. http://assets1.qype.com/uploads/photos/0019/4674/noodle_h… .The Yo-tel was probably the closest I’m going to get to Taiwan. It’s freshly made every day and it’s very different from other places that made them. The Yo-tel was soft, not flaky or crunchy. You can actually bend the donut and not break apart that easily.

The beef roll has some spicy kick to it. It’s like a Chinese version of enchiladas where they stacked the beef with fried onion cake. It’s my favorite version of breakfast burrito.It’s soft and chewy. You don’t really need to add any spices or sauce with that.

They also do serve lunch and dinner where a lot of noodle and rice items are on display with very low prices ranging in the $4 mark to around $6.

The service is very friendly. Everyone love to converse with lao ban liang (boss lady). She is a delight to talk to and treat her customers with very wonderful greeting.

Here’s a great about coming here in the breakfast time. A lot of Asian places don’t exactly accept tips on the table. One of the cool thing Rachel Ray will like in her budget dining is that this is one of the place in the morning that she can fit it in for her segment.

I already felt cheap enough, but spending only $7.50 for a yummy and very satisfying breakfast is a great way to kick off the day. Also a great way to keep me going on the right track!

Definitely will make my way to come here more often if I ever have an anxiety in early morning hours. ....not that I ever really had it. Ha!

Oh yes…cash only place.