Tasty Noodle House, San Gabriel

Tasty Noodle House

827 W. Las Tunas Dr.
San Gabriel, Ca 91776
(626) 284-8898

Okay, so this little hole in the wall restaurant replaced my awesome steamed stinky tofu place that I talked about in the stinky tofu entry. SAD. Why did I go there? I was not 100% sure it had changed. I was actually hoping that they remodeled a bit, but the food was the same. Alas, it was not.

Okay, so I drive to this little place and I have to say, I was kind of excited even though I really dislike that parking lot area. Since Golden Deli and Newport Seafood are located in that same plaza, the parking can be pretty horrific on some days, but luckily it was not too bad when my friends and I got there.

The restaurant probably only seats about 20 people at a time (maybe less) and the service seemed to be pretty quick. The waitress was pretty friendly and suggesting a bunch of things on the menu. The problem was the fact that the waitress did not speak much English and none of us spoke Mandarin, so it was really hard understanding her and because of it, we accidentally agreed to order some dong gua drink.

$1.80 dong gua drink
(This drink sadly tasted like rock sugar disssolved in water.)
Dong gua is a winter melon gourd. It is a fruit that is good cooked in soups or with meat/poultry. Since it is a winter melon, the outer skin is inedible, unlike their summer counter parts, such as zucchini.

Looking at the menu was a little difficult as well because we did not really know what anything was. I stuck with the safe route and ordered the 2 things I usually order at these little places:

Dan Dan noodles
Asked for extra spicy and it was not hot at all, but that was okay becase the flavor of the ground pork sauce was really good.

Spicy wontons
Not spicy (though you can see all the chil oil that it was swimming in), but I did enjoy the texture of the wonton skins.

My friend did not know what she wanted so I suggested getting the spicy beef noodle soup since she had tried that at some other place that we went to.

Spicy Beef Noodles

This dish was good. The soup was really flavorful, but seeing all the oil at the top bothered me a bit. I thought it was funny too because my friend does not eat a lot of meat just left all her meat in the bowl and my other friend ate it so that not to waste food.

My other friend, on the other hand, went for something new and what sounded kind of interesting. It was a beef soup with vegetables and what did he get?

EGG FLOWER SOUP?! Where's the BEEF?!
It was seriously like egg flower soup XD There were pieces of minced beef and the western vegetables they put in were corn and...cucumbers? HAHA at least he got his beef from my friend wasting her meat from her noodles.

Overall, I would go back for the dan dan noodles and I would try the buns the waitress was harping about, but next time I have to remember to bring a mandarin speaker or else I will have trouble ordering again XD