Midtown Lunch

Happy Noodle Bar opened last month in the space formally occupied by Nan Zhou. The small spot serves Chinese small bites and soups from various regions of China including Yunan and Xi’an. Then to round it out, the Happy people threw in Korean food and… a bloomin onion (not a joke! it is the first appetizer on the menu though not available when I visited).  Our foray into Happy Noodle Dining was not a continuous happy time.  Please have some patience by reading through the sad, the bland, and the ugly before you come to the good stuff.

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All the way back in my first month of Midtown Lunching in Philly, I was in all my newbie glory when I stumbled upon Tasty Place, the Chinese restaurant located in a basement next to an Asian grocery store. I still have yet to find a better chow fun in the city. When I realized the ridiculousness of that fact that it had been years since I ate at Tasty Place, I went back to try some other things off their extensive menu. And I stocked up on spices at the  grocery store (5 spice powder, ground lemon grass, wasabi powder, and citrus peel powder).

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Photo Courtesy of Ramen via Yelp 

A bowl of ramen is almost as good as a glass of whiskey to warm you up during the winter. But where should we go to find that perfect bowl? Ramen Boy only lasted about 5 months in Chinatown. I wasn’t crazy about the ramen and the gyoza were awful. When Terakawa Ramen opened in the Ramen Boy location barely a few weeks after its closing, I was hopeful. I had visited the New York location of Terekawa and enjoyed their ramen and appetizers. Would it be any better than its predecessor? Or is the location cursed?

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Its downright crazy that  I have only eaten at Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle once and that the one time was 2 years ago AND before the move to the bigger location. Silly me. Last time I dug into the braised oxtail hand pulled noodle soup. I applaud my past self for choosing something a little funkier. For this visit, I had to pick a different version of the soup, plus I had to explore the menu a lot more.

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China King is one of the many Chinese restaurants in China town that have separate menus, the American friendly menu and the more authentic menu (here, FuZhou style). Be clear that you want both menus.

Inside, the finishings are pretty sparse. Our waitress was both over and under attentive. Our waters were not refilled yet she  kept hovering over us while we told her we needed more time to order. It is all about the food though, we had some things that pleased, others that did not.

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It was less the name, and more so the pictures of giant congee bowls that drew me in to Happy Restaurant for lunch. The menu, a one page paper print out, features dim sum-like snacks, all ranging from 50 cents to $4.50. I always enjoy a lunch made up of a few different little things, so I was all about it.

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M Kee opened last fall in Chinatown with a noodley and roast meat filled menu. The entrance shows off all the roast delicacies, so I couldn’t begin to think about ordering anything other than meat over rice.  Although I was warned that 2 meats were enough for me, I had to push it to the limit and order 3.

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