Midtown Lunch

My first experience with the Chinese food at Goodies on Fulton St. (at Gold) was a great one so when the craving for noodle soup hit the other day I knew exactly where I was going. The hard part once I got there was deciding which kind to get, and then whether to get noodles or rice cakes in it. Thankfully the woman who’s always manning the tiny dining room had some time on her hands as the place was empty due to the torrential rain outside. When asked, she confirmed that this is indeed the same Goodies that used to be in Chinatown and based upon my second go-round with their food it’s definitely our gain.

While tempted by a soup called “A Little Bit of Everything” I instead ended up getting the pork and preserved cabbage soup with thick noodles ($5.95 for a quart) on recommendation. I couldn’t believe how cheap this was and how much of it there was!

All of the preserved cabbage and most of the pork was on the top so you could either mix it all together or do what I did and eat the stuff on top and leave the noodle for later. If you don’t like things with a slimy texture this might not be your cup of tea. The preserved cabbage was salty and slimy but didn’t really taste funky. The pork was in small chunks and didn’t have much flavor.

The noodles were great – much like udon but not all mushy like you get in most cases in the Financial District. In fact, I didn’t eat all of the soup in one sitting and hours later the noodles were still nice and chewy. You can also get mai fun or rice cakes if you’d prefer.

I haven’t tried the noodle soups at other places like Yip’s, but this was damn good and dirt cheap as well. Does anyone else have good sources of noodle soup to recommend? If so, let us know in the comments.

Goodies, 88 Fulton St. (at Gold), (212) 766-0852