I had a craving for stir fried noodles one night and good thing I always have a bag of fresh Chinese noodles, eggs and Chinese sausages in the fridge. You can find fresh Chinese noodles pretty easily in Chinatown. They sell them in bags and in different varieties round, thin, thick, flat… For $1.29 a bag, its about 4 servings. So I decided to make a stir fried noodles with Chinese sausages and I’ll use oyster sauce to flavor it but I also wanted some greens in it. Went to Trader Joe’s after work and saw a bag of snow peas. Haven’t had snow peas in a long time and never cooked snow peas before.
This was quick and easy. Basically boil a pot of water for the noodles, it shouldn’t take too long since its fresh. Cut up the sausages, scramble couple eggs and maybe throw in garlic/onion if you got some. Heat up a pan and stir fry everything except for the noodles and eggs. When the snow peas and sausages are almost done throw in the noodles and give it a good stir. At this point I added some baby spinach as well, these cook fast! Now add some oyster sauce, as much as you like. I also added some hoisin sauce to it. After everything gets coated with the oyster sauce, make a well in the center and pour in the eggs. Leave it alone for few minutes to let the bottom solidify. Now stir the eggs to make scrambled eggs and once you have enough chunks of eggs, mix it together with the noodles. Done.
I never tried added hoisin sauce to noodles before and I found, surprisingly, it gave the dish some twang. Good.

I took my friend Scott to New Chao Chow for their spicy beef noodles. We walked in and sat down at a big table with another guy. That guy knew exactly what he wanted and ordered even before he sat down. As for Scott and I we took our time going through the menu. As usual I had three or four things I was iffy about. I can never make up my mind. Scott was ready to order, he decided on wonton noodles instead of spicy beef noodles. While I was still trying to decide what I wanted the guy across from us was already eating his food. He got a bowl of dry noodles with bunch of mixed meats on top and soup on the side. It looked pretty good so I decided to get that but on the menu there were two noodles with soup on the side. One was combination rice stick and the other one was combination noodles. Hm…what’s the difference? I decided to get the combination rice stick.
Within five minutes my order came. Usually the flavors of the broth determine how the whole bowl of noodles would taste like. So with the soup on the side I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of flavors from this bowl of dry noodles. Oh OOHHHHH was I freakin wrong!! The noodles were bursting with flavors! I wasn’t able to tell what went into the sauce but it was soooooooo good. The warm noodles were topped with a mixed of pork, ground pork, slices of fish cakes, shrimps and the usual scallions. OH and rice sticks are the same flat thin noodles use in pho which I love. People usually don’t drink the soup in soup noodles so this would be perfect for those people. I took a sip of the soup and was REALLY glad that I got it on the side.

- New Chao Chow, 111 Mott St. NYC

Before leaving for LA I knew exactly where and what I wanted to eat once the plane lands in LA. A restaurant in Rowland Heights call The Boat has two of my favorite dishes. One is the boneless Hainam Chicken Rice and the other one, the dish that I wanted to eat, is the Continental Fried Rice. What makes it continental I have no freakin idea but I know it’s freakin awesome. Tomato fried rice topped with one fried chicken thigh and leg, one fried egg, half a fried hot dog and a piece of tomato!!!!
Sadly there will be no photo of this since I didn’t get to eat it. Once I got onto the plane I didn’t feel so good, kept drinking hot tea and felt really tired. When we landed I told my sister I wanted something hot and comforting so she and her bf took me to Taiko for Japanese food. Taiko is located in Brentwood at the top floor of a mini mall and is known for their udon. After scanning through the menu I decided on a bowl of oyakodon. When I told the waitress what I wanted she asked me if I wanted just that or the combo. With the combo I would get a small bowl of oyakodon and a bowl of basic udon. After hearing that option I quickly changed my order. It was silly of me to not eat udon at a place known for their udon right?!
For $11 I got a not so small bowl of good, not great, oyakodon and a big bowl of super silky udon with pieces of rice krispie like tempura. After my first slurp of the udon I really wanted to say thanks to the waitress for letting me know about the combo. The noodles were smooth and silky great for slurping. The broth was clean and tasty. The bits of tempura, now soggy, gave the noodle an extra level of tastiness. One minor criticism, I can’t believe I’m going to say this but….., they gave me a lot of udon. Along with the bowl of oyakodon there were just too much food for me but I did my best to finish the udon. The oyakodon was alright, tasted great but the egg wasn’t runny enough.
Overall it was a superb meal and for $11…come on!!!

- Taiko 11677 San Vicente Blvd Ste 302, Los Angeles