Sunday, July 31, 2011

Rollin Out the Beef Rolls at 101 Noodle Express

It seems crazy that I've gone all these years without making it to 101 Noodle Express, but man am I glad I made it. I hit the Alhambra shop, though there are several branches in the San Gabriel Valley and even a few mall locations.

The thing to get here is the beef roll (pictured above) and after having it this weekend, it is something I'm going to be craving. Marinated beef with a sweet cilantro sauce wrapped in a Chinese pancake. This is everything you want in a snack: savory, sweet, salty and greasy with the added flavor boost of cilantro. It's hard to explain how good this thing is.

There are other good dishes at 101. The dan dan noodles are slightly spicy and are especially good with a few scoops of 101's cilantro sauce that you'll find on the table. Lamb soup with cabbage is a funk-o-rama with big slices of liver and hand pulled noodles. The liver isn't great...it's cooked to dry consistency, but all of that flavor is in the broth and the noodles are nicely chewy. Dumplings are okay, but nothing special and the fried ones tasted a tad off, like they were fried in old oil.

But the thing here is the beef roll, and that's what I'll be going for in the future, possibly pretty regularly. Oh, and they have a pork roll too. Next time...

101 Noodle Express
1408 E. Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA 91801
(626) 300-8654

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