For the longest time, there were discussions on Chowhound that consisted almost entirely of number and letter combinations. “Have you tried A36, J19, or M22?” one would write. Another poster would reply, “No, but A22 is to die for.”
Back when I was a city-dweller, the call letters always intrigued me. They refer to menu items at Joe’s Noodle House, a spectaular chinese noodle house in the lovely suburb of Rockville. Once I became a (albeit temporary) suburbanite, I consoled myself with the knowledge that I would now be close to the infamous noodle house and could partake in its fully noodle glory.
And it has yet to disappoint. I’ve visited several times before, including once with rj3, but hadn’t been back in months. So after shopping at our local suburban chinese market, when zaf and I had a noodle craving, we headed over to Joe’s.
Joe’s has a setup that is unusual in the U.S. You order at the cash register in the back of the restaurant and then your food and drinks are brought to you by servers. But, it’s not fast food style — if, as with our visit, the restaurant is busy, you are greeted at the front door by a host(ess) who makes you wait for an available table. Once a table is free, you are directed to the counter, order your meals, and then claim your already reserved table. It makes for a sightly confusing and hectic ordering process, but given the food, who cares?
Zaf and I shared two dishes. Mine was R27: Beef Chow-Fun, a wide rice noodle with beef and a fantastic sauce. The noodles are either made onsite or have never seen a freezer in their lives. Regardless, they’re stunning, and the chow fun noodles beat even my perennial favorite, Chinatown Express. The beef itself was excellently flavored, but unfortunately the quality was lower than expected. Zaf had N17: Beef Noodle Soup, a gigantic bowl of soup broth, beef squares, and thin noodles. The soup base and the noodles were again fanastic, perfectly spiced and very smooth. I swear they infused the noodles with cocaine of some type, as I couldn’t stop eating them. Again, the beef was less then spectacular, but the noodles more than made up for it.
Recommendation: Get noodle dishes for the noodles and savor the noodles. The meat is just a bonus, anyway.
The entire menu of alphanumeric combinations is available here. Don’t salivate too much.
Joe’s Noodle House | 1488-C Rockville Pike | Rockville, MD 20852 | (301) 881 – 5518 | www.joesnoodlehouse.com
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11Feb
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11Feb
On Fark today, ‘Good Eats’ host Alton Brown gets a new look.
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11Feb
So a guy walks into a bar, orders five Baltimore Zoo‘s. Bartender looks at him and asks, how do you make a Baltimore Zoo? Guy gives him the following recipe:- 1 shot Gin
- 1 shot light Rum
- 1 shot Sour mix
- 1 shot Triple sec
- 1/2 shot Vodka
- 1 splash Beer
- 1 splash Grenadine
Pour over ice in a highball glass
The bartender makes five Baltimore Zoos and the guy drinks them all at once. Bartender says, ‘buddy, you shouldn
- 1 shot Gin
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10Feb
Inspired by this pho article, someone asked: Why doesn’t the United States have a national dish? Mexico has their burritos, the British have beef wellington (or spoted dick, depending on how snarky an answer you want,) the French their cassoulet.
The early contenders are easy to deal with. Sure, the saying goes “nothing’s more American than apple pie.” But then, oh, there’s the cherry pie lobby trying to get their vote in. And what about corn? Can a vegetable take the title? Frankly, all these are too divisive to carry the mandate.
Let’s move on to the heavyweights. Like baseball, hot dogs are stereotypically American. Even Upton Sinclair can’t argue that. A certain fast-food clown would rather the whole world associated our fine nation with hamburgers, instead. But really, shouldn’t we have, well, a slightly fancier national dish? Something we can dress up a little? When the ambassador from Luxembourg comes over for a formal state dinner, I think it’d be a little embarrassing to have ketchup and mustard next to the fine silverware. I don’t care how many stars your restaurant has, there’s only so far you can go with either the hamburger or the hot dog.
So what’s left? Can’t we come together and choose a single national dish for all?
Me, I’m rooting for the Twinkie.
-pmmj, Guest Blogger -
09Feb
Following the continuing saga of our favorite least-awful sugar substitute, we have the obligatory legal action:The marketers of the hot-selling sugar substitute filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Delaware yesterday alleging that the Sugar Association and other groups are waging a “malicious smear campaign” against their product in an attempt to boost sugar sales.
[…]
Yesterday’s suit is in response to a false-advertising lawsuit the Sugar Association filed against McNeil [the Splenda people] in California in December, Watts said. That lawsuit, which does not target Tate & Lyle P.L.C., the manufacturer of Splenda, seeks to prevent the marketers of Splenda from continuing what it called a “misleading” advertising campaign.Nuisance lawsuits rot your teeth, you know.
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09Feb
I usually avoid the gayborhood opting instead for slightly … uhm … less tacky locales. Like this one. But regardless, tonight I braved the walk down 17th Street – fully adorned in Mardi Gras beads and screaming underage boys who spell it with an i and clearly need to eat more – to have dinner at Peppers.
Peppers has been around for as long as I can remember, and used to have one of the best brunches in town, though the quality has been less reliable in recent years. Our waitress came to take drink orders, but first she commented that I look like Colin Farrell. Now, I’ve never heard this before, and I’m a bit hurt she didn’t at least add “a much younger” before the name.
Tonight’s meal (Ancho and Veggie Quesadillas, with a Stoli Vanil and soda) was good. The quesadilla came well stuffed with cheese and lovely roasted veggies, and a side of jicama slaw (which is bloody good!) and some rather bland pico de gallo. The drinks were strong, and to be honest, that’s what I was after.
Not fine dining, but a good place to people watch. And waitresses who know how to get good tips (especially since the service was fairly good even disregarding the compliments)!
Peppers
1527 17th St Nw
202-328-8193 -
08Feb
So you used our Trick Your Way into Her Panties Veal recipe on the hot chick in the cube next to you and found success. It’s the next morning and there are still no restraining orders or harassment charges, and all it took to keep her at your place for the night was the threat of roaming neighborhood mutant werewolf zombies.
Well baby, that can all change in the space of an outraged face slap if you don’t finish the deal with some help from our Pretend Like You’ve Got Culture Omelet
This omelet says baby, I’ve got style and class. I buy you chocolates on the appropriate holidays and enjoy watching ice skating on TV. It says I’m in touch with my spicy ethnic roots even though my ancestors are from Latvia. It says, please don -
07Feb
I emerged from Seeing ‘Sideways’ last Friday with two things: some serious trepidation concerning the world’s entire male population, and a resolution to give pinot noirs a second chance.
I know very little about wines besides that shirazes are spicy, merlots are boring, and pinot noirs are bitter. But seeing as none of these are really deep statements we headed on over to Bardeo in Cleveland Park.
Full-bodied and sophisticated, with fruity overtones- that’s how I’d describe the d -
04Feb
I spent this afternoon lunching at Vicino Ristorante Italiano in Silver Spring (959 Sligo Avenue), to mark a coworker -
04Feb
Our thanks to Kanishka for drawing attention to the recent DCist post about Israeli Falafel- a post that that rapidly devolved into an argument over cultural plagiarism of traditional Arabic foods. We’ve done some in-depth research into this matter (a couple of google searches) and these seem to the facts.
The claims:
Arabs believe that Israelis have stolen the concept of Falafel and turned it into what is popularly referred to as the”Israel’s National Snack.” No tourist brochure is without a picture of it, popular songs refer to it, and Israeli cookbooks contain recipes for it.
Israelis believe that it is silly to try to ‘own” a method of frying legumes, and that falafel is an international food, like hamburgers and pasta. Though no one claims to have created the recipe from scratch, Israeli cooks have as much a claim on it as anyone.
The Facts:
Falafel is old. There are records of both Jews and Arabs eating Falafel in the middle east for at least 3000 years, so the argument of who was technically eating it first doesn
