Noodle bars are probably the epitome of the Eastern chic. There is no comparable examples of ‘western chic’ - the closest are possibly the Hard Rock chain, servin normal food in a ‘hip and fun’ environment.

When I first arrived in Leeds, there was only a couple of so-called noodle bar . Fujihiro is a family run restaurant - serving semi-expensive fried udons, soup noodles, fried rice and the likes. Tampopo (named after a japanese movie) serves noodles from ‘around the world’ but I don’t like their idea of presenting everything with grated carrots on top. Sisushi opened not long after I arrived, serving semi-expensive sushi and noodles, but I decided that I don’t like that place with its warm sushi rice and ridicullious lunch time service. Their noodles are so-so,but nothing to shout about.Yuck.I love Yo Sushi at Harvey Nick’s but their deceptive prices means that I can’t make the trip there as often as I like.

Then the Wagamama chain hit Leeds and that was it, the mama of noodle bars has arrived in hicksville at last. See my review here.

In December, the australians hit town with Wok On - a pick-n-mix noodle bar with dirt cheap prices and friendly owners.They serve a variety of food from spring rolls, miso soup, nasi goreng to laksa. My first trip there was ruined by their inability to produce a decent bowl of tom yum noodle..which I honestly told them when asked how was the food. I went back again in 1 week’s time and requested for the same in super-spicy, it was not the best, but it was a very passable version of tom yum beehoon.Me likes. Kudos to them for improving.

Last Sunday after the photoshoot at Kirkstall Abbey, we decided that we were going to get some food.Tired of going back to the same old places in Leeds city centre, we headed towards Headingley,the university central of Leeds.This is the only place that has a roadside starbucks in Leeds - imagine !

And of course, I had to bump into something looking delicious:

We were greeted by Orbital blasting when we walked in…passing by delicious looking hoi sin duck salads and fresh sushi. YES they actually sell fresh RAW fish! Amazing. Wok on had sushi on sale,but its vegetarian and grilled salmon ect - cooked foods sushi.I was very impressed. It is available for eat in or take out - with around a 15% discount for takeaway portions of sushi - somewhat like Sushi King.They had funky walls of green and black retro squares-fitting in with the area.

The menu was mostly divided into two ; udon soup noodles or fried yellow noodles with 6 variations each. As it was still a chilly winter afternoon, I opted for a bucket of steaming chilli chicken & mushroom udon. Bacon opted for fried noodle with chilli chicken.Like exactly the same huh.I had a strawberry smoothie at £2.65 and bacon had a fresh-pressed apple juice at £2.25.They sell bottled beers as well, in the evenings, a meal deal of a fried noodle and beer is £6.

The chilli chicken & mushroom udon was a dissapointment at £4.75. The soup tasted of watered down chicken pot noodle; or Maggi mee.Urgh. What was worse was it was watered down and there was no flavour of chilli at all. When I asked the hip waiter for some chilli sauce to add some flavour to my noodle he said that they don’t have it. DONT HAVE IT?! omg.Anyway,apparently it used to be spicier (they only opened 6 weeks ago) but there had been so mcuh complains of it being too spicy they had basically toned it down to a tasteless piece of shit.Urgh. At least he could have offered to have it go back into the pot and add more chilli or whatever it is supposed to have. -10 points

Bacon’s chilli chicken fried noodle did not fare well at all.In fact, if it was even possible, it was worse than mine. Chilli chicken = SWEET Chilli chicken = tasting sickly like sweet n sour chicken noodle. They did not even make any effort to flavour it otherwise - just lashings of sweet and sour sauce basting noodles.-10 points

Oh,they did had loads of beansprouts in both our noodles +2 points

It was extremely dissapointing, seeing that we usually have a good session of masak-masak meal on Sundays.It left me full (big portions) but extremely unsatisfied. I hope they learn and improve - why are they making asian food for people that don’t like the complex flavours and they tone it down so much that it taste like just another takeaway? I don’t understand.

If I ever go that way again, I will be giving the sushi a try. Otherwise….never again.

Nooshi
23 Otley Rd, Leeds,
LS6 3AA
Tel - 0113 274 1666

But kudos to Leeds for trying with the mushrooming of noodle bars. loveleeds!

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