Noodle Chu

With lack of a Chinese or cliche restaurant name (maybe there is one but I just didn't see it?), Noodle Chu struck me slightly suspicious. Why would there be an authentic Cantonese dim sum place next to the distinctly American Shoprite/Kmart/IHOP? But, because a friend of a friend had mentioned it after I talked about the Qin Dynasty Seafood Restaurant, I figured that I should go at some point. Apparently, the rest of my family had already been there for dinner (but not dim sum) due to my dad's work place having some party there, but I missed it because I was in college. This time, we went for the dim sum. I'm still not really sure why we went out to eat; usually, we go out to celebrate something and this time I don't see much that requires celebrating. No complaints, though.

One distinct thing about Noodle Chu is that it is highly decorative. The interior design has been meticulously planned - and I mean, more meticulous than the starchy tablecloths and the square-tables-that-can-become-circular-tables. They had drawings of (all?) the Chinese emperors on the wall, and rather ancient looking room dividers next to the walls, and one wall was just covered in Chinese face masks (the kind used in Chinese operas). They even had one (yes, one!) potted plant in the corner. Compared to most other Chinese restaurants, Noodle Chu - despite not sounding authentic - looks like they made an effort to transport people to China/Hong Kong.

The place was quite empty at 11:30, but by noon, all the tables were full and people were sitting in line. We ordered food by choosing tins of dim sum from the carts that the waitresses would push around. My mum got me a tofu even though I didn't want it, but oh well. It was just plain ol' fried tofu...with a lump of cow flesh in the middle.

My brother got a thousand-year-old-egg congee, and it was pretty tasty although I think there may have been chicken bits floating around in it. The congee (rice) is made the Hong Kong way, and reminded both my brother and I of the congee shop on the third floor of Marina Square in Hong Kong. No matter how hard my mum tries, she can never replicate that texture and taste.

The vegetable dumplings had shrimp in it. Figures. My sister particularly enjoyed the xiao3long2bao1 and the pork/shrimp spring rolls, although she spent most of her time reading and not actually eating.

The fried glutinous-rice-flour-ball-of-dough with lotus paste filling was delicious. My brother and I pretended that they were toffee apples, which is really silly. However, when we were younger, we used to pretend that our bowl of rice was a cake and we used to cut "slices" of rice to eat. So, it's not entirely bizarre for us. Plus, it's appalling for the other customers, haha.

My brother asked my sister, "Hey, do you want to eat Squidward?", and my sister replied indignantly, "No!!!!"

Overall, the Qin Dynasty Seafood Restaurant has more variety (I mean, they had DURIAN), but Noodle Chu is much calmer, has tons of the basic dim sum, including congee and pig tripe, and looks more impressive (for those who care about appearance/for those who are looking for places to take co-workers). It's family-friendly, of course, but also extremely busy during the 11-2 dim sum period. The best idea is to arrive around 11:15 or 11:30 - the food is out, but there are also plenty of empty tables.

Noodle Chu, 770 Rt 46 E, Parsippany. You won't miss it. It's in a huge outdoor mall area.

NYC Trip No 2

I suppose it will become a tradition for me, KC and DS to go to NYC once/year just to chill out and eat food. Last time, we hung out after AP exams in May.

We got to Chinatown at 10:30 am, but nothing much was open until over 11 am. Actually, some bakeries were, so we browsed them (because I was looking for strawberry egg tarts for my sister. We actually got to a store that sold green tea, papaya, almond, Portuguese, and normal egg tarts, but did NOT sell strawberry ones! Upsetting!). There were also other bubble tea places, but DS wanted to go to TenRen. This time, I got the coconut bubble tea since I think I prefer the milk-based teas over the water-based ones. This makes sense, of course, because the fat in the milk is highly loved by taste buds. Actually, is "fat" a taste? Is it a flavour like sweet or umami? If not, then why is fat-free milk so much less palatable than whole-fat milk? There perhaps are some sort of receptors that respond to fat content in foods. The coconut bubble tea was actually just sweet milk bubble tea [I think they used sweetened condensed milk at some point) with dried shredded coconut in it. I wish they had used coconut milk or coconut water, since the coconut flavour wasn't too defined. Also, all the tapioca was glued together into a great clump, so I ended up chugging 17 or so tapioca balls at once. Overall though, the bubble tea was awesome.

For lunch, we went to Shanghai Asian Manor, which was interesting because the shop side had a giant depiction of a bun in a bamboo steamer. Evidently, it's disproportional; honestly, do you expect a bun the size of a bamboo steamer? The silliness, for some reason, made me want to go to the store. Actually, any restaurants that have food sculptures on the store front beckon me in.

A meal in Chinatown is pretty well priced and pretty amazing too. We got 24 steamed buns, which was a lot, actually. The ones above are some grilled pig-mince buns (pork buns). Since DS and KC couldn't finish the last three, they ate the animal parts and I ate the bun parts. The grilled part was pretty amazing, and I wish that the whole bun was crispy and grilled instead of just the bottom of the bun.

These are the crab and pig-mince xiao[3] long[2] bao[1] with the soup that leaks out when you bite into it. Apparently, the crab taste is really not prominent, and the soup was too watery and unauthentic. I can't vouch for that since I didn't actually eat any, but I remember this time I was in Wuhan MANY years ago, and my relatives and I ate a zillion mini xiao[3] long[2] bao[1], and it was DELICIOUSLY ADDICTIVE.

For some reason, the vegetable buns were wrapped in dumpling wrappers. I do not consider these buns. Sure, they're steamed, but where are the yeast-and-white-flour-and-salt-and-oil infusions [aka, the dough for the steamed BUNS!?]!

These were delicious, and filled with vegetables that complemented each other, and the dumplings [oh, I'm calling them dumplings now because they don't taste like buns!] went really well with the soy sauce mixed with with Chinese celery and sesame oil. They were also really pretty. They remind me of triskelions [that compose clathrin-coated pits].

For dinner, we were going to go to Red Lobster but KC and DS were being really considerate because they realised that I don't eat animals. I suppose I would've liked to go to Red Lobster, just to check it out, but Olive Garde was fine too [yes, Olive Garde. The neon light for "n" in "Garden" was broken]. Since it's NYC Times Square, the prices were really jacked up. Also, since it's NYC, the Calories of each dish was posted, which made me feel terrible and super conscious of myself. We had a nice view, though.

I was debating whether I wanted eggplant parm or mushroom ravioli, but I actually didn't really want either... I wasn't really hungry, to say the truth. It's been 4 hours since then, and I'm still not hungry. Emotionally, perhaps, but physically not. So, at Olive Garde(n), I got a chocolate mousse with cookie crumbs, because I don't think that my local Olive Garden has chocolate mousse.

The mousse was really good, but that's a really generic statement because chocolate mousse is always really good. The cookie crumb base was basically crushed Oreos. I should try to make mousse myself one day. Once, in HK, I made peach mousse and it was only alright. After we kept it in the freezer for weeks, my mum started using chunks of it as ice (not in drinks or food or anything, but as ice, to keep non-foodstuffs cold). Another time, I was trying to make chocolate pie and I overbeat the cream, and it turned out sort of like mousse, but much more airy and ugly.