Hand Made

Restaurant Name: Sheng Wang

Location: 27 Eldridge St

Website: N/A

Price Range: 6$ a person

JCL Rating: 6/10

JCL's Choice: Hand-pulled noodles

It took us a while before finding Eldridge street. The funny thing was that it is one of those streets that we pass by all the time. We just never looked at the street signs. After a bit of searching, we finally arrived on the block where its located. Now the question of which one of these restaurants are the right one? We did not have the exact address, but luckily I could read a little Chinese so we decided to go into the one that said "authentic hand-pulled noodle."

What is hand-pulled noodle? Hand-pulled noodle, known as "la mian" in Mandarin, is a traditional noodle making method by hand. The dough is consisted of water and flour only. But the dough requires excess kneading through twisting and stretching. The goal of the dough is to be wet and stretchy. Just have enough flour so the noodle won't be sticking to each other when you start pulling.**(Source retrieved at link in the end of post)

This place looks like it's been here for a relatively long time. Old tables and chairs. Waitresses making dumplings in the open. You can see how skillful they are. It is kind of like a sit-down fast food restaurant. No beverages were served, the waitresses basically take your orders and bring your food out. No tips were required (but since we are the well-mannered Asians that we are, we gave them tips). I ordered house special hand-pulled noodle soup, my friend ordered the house special peel noodle soup. So basically it's the same everything else aside from the noodles. Peel noodle uses the same dough as hand-pulled noodle, but it is peel by a knife instead of pulled. Another traditional Chinese cooking technique. 

The house special contains beef tendon, beef tripe, fish ball filled with minced beef, and half piece of bone. Hand-pulled noodle is very bouncy and firm to the texture. When you bite it, it almost feels like it bounces your teeth. It is very long and doesn't break that easily. As for peel noodle, it is the opposite. The texture is chewy and smooth to the tongue. Both kinds of noodles have their own unique structure. The soup is a well seasoned beef stock. I do taste a slight MSG additive (umami taste) in it though.

Overall this meal was well worth it. This place is definitely for noodle eaters. Their noodle showcases the quality of traditional noodle pulling technique (a shame I couldn't witness the actual technique at work). But next time I would rather try another topping instead of this house special. This specific dish has lack of meat... just mostly cow tendons and tripe. Hmmm... maybe the duck or rabbit would be much more worth it...

**http://www.lukerymarz.com/noodles/index.html

Great Balls!

Restaurant Name: The MeatBall Shop
Location: 84 Stanton St.
Website: http://www.themeatballshop.com/
Price Range: 20-30$ per person depending on how many sides and desserts you order
JCL Rating: 6.5/10
JCL's Choice: Spicy pork w/ spicy meat sauce; Mashed potatoes; specials (Depends on what the special is)

"Wow so crowded, this must be good!" Was the thought that came into my mind when I first entered this restaurant/bar. This place is very crowded. Especially around dinner time. The perfect ambience for people that likes loud and relax environments due to the dimmed candle lighting. I remember vividly, the first time I came here (recommended and accompanied by the same friend) we had to wait one hour and thirty minutes. Yep, an hour and thirty minutes, waiting in the cold winter night of January 2011. But at the end of the night, it was well worth it. I had spicy meatball with spicy meat sauce. It was great. Very tender and well flavored. Combined with the sauce, it was the perfect match. I went back there a couple more times after, my favorite has got to be the steak and bacon with cheddar cheese meatball with spicy meat sauce. All of those visits were before I decided to write a food blog.

This restaurant/bar's ordering style is very unique. Their menus are plastic framed and each table has a cup with markers in it. You have to check the boxes on what kind of meatballs you want, with which sauce, and under or on the side for side dishes. I thought that was very cool.

The first few times that I visited this restaurant, the service was excellent. The waitresses were extremely attentive. Maybe it is due to the fact that it was overly crowded so they want people to leave as soon as possible. But nonetheless, they were always there when you needed to place your orders or to refill your water or to get the check. But when I visited again today, the service was very poor. Starting with the busboy... very unprofessional. I understand that there is no uniform restrictions but the first half of his boxers were showing due to his sacking pants! My friend's glasses and mine were empty for a while... and yet no refills were being made. And when he did get a chance to refill our glasses, he spilled all over the table and splashed some on my friend. Props to the waitress though, she was very polite... but less attentive as I experienced before. Now after my discriminating comments about the service... we can move on to the food and beverages.

They have special meatballs, side dishes, beverages either weekly or daily. I can't come to a conclusion of how often they do so. Today's special meatball was Chicken Cordon which consists of chicken, ham, and Swiss cheese. I had it with Parmesan cream sauce. The creaminess of the Parmesan cream sauce enhances the individual flavors of the chicken and ham. Although I didn't taste the Swiss as much as I would like. Mix the spaghetti in the cream sauce, YUMMY! Every plate of naked balls comes with a piece of focaccia bread. I assume it was freshly baked in the morning. I got my order at around 2 PM, it was not completely hard but the skin was a little rough to chew on.

Every time I give this place a visit, I have to order the mashed potatoes. It is so rich in butter. They also put bite size pieces of potatoes and a shreds of potato skin in their mashed potatoes. Topped with minced chives. I loved the idea of having chunks of potato but with potato skins as well, that is just fascinating. The skin gives the mashed potato a total new texture and color contrast.

Their dessert menu consist of ice cream scoops and ice cream sandwiches. You can pick your choice of ice cream with which ever type of cookie you want to make the sandwich with. Just like the meatballs, they also have specials. Today's special was maltball ice cream with chocolate wafer cookie. The ice cream was very milky. You can taste the whooper as the ice cream's main flavor. But as for the chocolate walfer cookie, it was not up to par. The chocolate was a little too overwhelming. It was also very hard. As the "bread" of the ice cream sandwich, you would expect the cookies to be softer... Eating this ice cream sandwich was out of the question. The cookie was too hard to crack with the spoon... I apologize for not taking a picture for the ice cream sandwich. Forgot.

The beverage menu consist of alcoholic beverages from the bar as well as floats and lemonades. Guess what? They have special lemonades just like the desserts and meatballs... I had a tarragon lemonade before, but was not impressed. But don't be afraid to try it out other lemonade specials!

Overall it was only decent. The food quality is great. But the service was not on point. When you been treated above par once, you would expect the place to hold its consistency, no? In this case, I was very disappointed with the service we received. It might have been due to a hot summer day or a less busy afternoon, but that is still not an excuse.