Yummy Lan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House
131 N 10th St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Neighborhood: Chinatown

It's the battle of mythical proportions.  The Chinatown noodle house showdown.

Though similar in name, Lan Zhou and Nan Zhou are not the same.  Where to start?  Let's go with service.  We walked into the restaurant and stood at the entrance waiting to be seated.  When it looked like the staff wasn't paying any attention to us, we went ahead and sat ourselves.  When it looked like we were still being ignored, I went up and grabbed menus from the register for ourselves.  Finally, when it looked like we weren't go to get our orders taken, I flagged down one of the waitresses and told her we were ready.  Nan Zhou is like the New Jersey of gas stations - full service, and Lan Zhou is like other states - no service.

Because I wanted to compare Lan to Nan, I ordered what I normally order at Nan - fish ball soup.  The fish balls and broth here tasted very similar to those at Nan, so no differences there.  The noodles on the other hand appeared to have been sitting somewhere, cooked, for quite a while.  They were stuck together and I had to use both my chopsticks and spoon to pull them apart - that is, unless I wanted to eat them like they were lasagna.

Since both Lan's food and service were not on par with those at Nan (pricing is similar at both places), I will be returning to Nan and saying goodbye to Lan. 

Ramen Bar
4040 Locust St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Neighborhoods: University City, Spruce Hill

This is an update to my original review.  I came back here for the third time.  This time it was because it was super cold outside and I wanted something hot to warm me up.  I dropped by and asked to sit at the bar overlooking the kitchen.

The food was good as usual, but the primary reason for my review update concerns the cleanliness of the restaurant.  During the 20 minutes or so that I was sitting there, I noticed that the chef was multitasking with his ungloved hands and without washing his hands in between each task.  What was he doing?  Nothing too gross - but he was basically picking up ingredients and dropping them into my soup, cleaning the counter with some towel that I'm sure was not something I want his cooking hands to be contaminated with, cleaning up random empty containers, etc.

I also noticed the pork was just sitting out on the counter at room temperature - granted, I don't know how long they actually keep it out.  Regardless, it probably should not be placed in a location where someone like me can sneeze and immediately contaminate future customers with my yucky germs.  That's right, if you came in on Wednesday, you and I are probably closer than you think.  Just kidding, I didn't sneeze :)

Having eaten at Philly food trucks and traveled to countries where food cleanliness is the least of my worries, I'm not a "germaphobe."  But, given Ramen Bar's attempt to be a somewhat decent mid-end restaurant, I expected better!

Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House
927 Race St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Neighborhood: Chinatown

As it's name descriptively states, Nan Zhou is a noodle house.  But, I say it's a little more than that.  Unlike what most people probably expect from a Chinatown restaurant, Nan Zhou is clean, with its decor obviously furnished by Ikea.  It seems to be common practice here to seat guests at tables together with other strangers (i.e., like the communal tables found at Le Pain Quotidien).  This is fine, except when it's just two people, and you're both sitting next to each other at a round table.  Conversation gets a bit more difficult and awkward.

pork and chive dumplings

Anyway, onto the food!  We ordered the steamed pork and chive dumplings, fish ball noodle soup, and brisket noodle soup.  The steamed pork and chive dumplings sound delicious, but we were both less than impressed.  I had the fish noodle soup, which came in a very generous portion - the noodles (which you can get hand drawn or shaved) filled up pretty much 70% of the bowl, with the rest of the space taken up by the fish balls, veggies, and broth.  I'm always a little hesitant to order "fish balls," because, really, what is in "fish balls"?  But, I decided I'd rather leave that a mystery because they were delicious and there was no need to ruin the experience.

Out of five stars, I would give Nan Zhou a 4 - taking one away because it's cash only (I'm a credit card kind of guy) and the dumplings tasted like they came from Trader Joe's (no offense to all you TJ fans out there)!

fish ball noodle

happy stomach

At the recommendation of a friend, we headed over to Tea Talk a block away to grab some bubble tea.  I ordered the red bean pudding bubble tea, which apparently comes hot, so it was perfect given the freezing weather that night.

yum!