Ching @ Tustin, Seafood Noodle Soup

Ordered:
Seafood Noodle Soup combo ★★★★

Good for: 
When you are feeling sick (the healthy seafood noodle soup), craving for black bean sauced noodles (Jajangmyeon, zhajiangmian or炸酱面, whatever)

Price: $

Today I felt so sore from all the exercise I did yesterday (all the exercise == 40 min or work out), and was craving a healthy noodle soup place for lunch. So I ended up going to this small food court in Woori’s market (Korean supermarket on Redhill before 5).

There are altogether three places in the food court, a Chinese Korean, a Korean and a Japanese. We wanted to have the black bean noodle, but was afraid that it would be too dry, so we ordered a seafood noodle soup combo from “Ching” in the end.

It was not the best combo I had, but it was the perfect food I need for lunch today. Noodle soup, there are several categories:
A. Strong flavored oily beef noodle soup
B. Strong flavored miso ramen
C. Normal ramen (sometimes with starch)
D. Normal beef noodle soup
E. Sweet salty Pho
F. Clear soup Korean noodles with no spicy
G. Mama’s homemade noodle soup

Pardon me for any possibly missing categories… Obviously my preference for lunch today is G, but since that’s not available I turned to F. Someday, I shall have a post about all the differences in the noodles too:p As the noodles here at Ching is different than traditional Chinese noodles, they are more smooth (sort of like spaghetti).

More exercise tonight maybe? I hope my body doesn’t ache that much after more work out, so I can go for A in the list soon lol.


Ching Chinese Express

14551 Red Hill Ave
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 838-8001

Hakata Ramen @ Fountain Valley 新撰组

The other day me and my colleague were heading to a Vietnamese restaurant in Fountain Valley, but was disappointed to find out that they were closed for lunch. Another perfect example of how you should always check before you do something lol. But the good thing is, I remember this ramen place in Fountain Valley where every one of my friends who has been there said was really good. So we just went! I’ve been to the barbeque place right next door. That one was good too, feels very Japanese :p I like places that have that kind of “foreign” feeling.

Anyway, the place is called Hakata Ramen (Shin-sen-gumi). The moment I entered, I kind had this bad feeling that how come I’ve never been here before…It was crowded, but matched the perfect picture of a Ramen place in my mind J The selections were actually not that many. We got distracted and talked about the power of customization and how everything is becoming “Micro” addressing individuality. Anyway, we then ordered a fried noodle dish and a pork soup ramen combo with fried rice, which turned out to be too much for us (people are trying to lose some weight here, never mind if you can eat two bowls of ramen without a blink :).

They have a piece of paper that you need to fill in for your order. It basically turns a customization process into a standardized one, by naming the columns how much oil you want in your soup (light, normal, strong), how much flavor you want for your soup base (light, normal, strong), etc. We chose light for the oil and normal for the flavor. Turned out to be great. The soup was not oily at all and felt very natural (opposed to the heavy creamy soup base in Mitsuwa or Class 302). Compared to Mitsuwa, the noodle portion is large, definitely fed me well. Like other Japanese places, they have hand-written dessert menus posted on the wall. We were really full so didn’t try any (I really wanted to try some though), so maybe next time!

Shin-Sen-Gumi Hakata Ramen
http://www.yelp.com/biz/shin-sen-gumi-hakata-ramen-fountain-valley
18315 Brookhurst St
Unit 1
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
(714) 962-8971
http://www.shinsengumigroup.com

Lao Dong Beef Noodle Soup @ Irvine 老董牛肉面

Guess what, the new beef noodle soup place that we've been waiting so long... is OPEN now!!

(During the long months of me and my friends waiting for this place to open, we actually made couple good jokes, one of them being-- Friend: Hey, you know that new clear soup beef noodle place, when does it open? Me: WTH is a Nuclear Beef Noodle Soup?!....o(╯□╰)o

Anyway, we can't wait to try this new place! It's in the plaza of Jefferey&Walnut in Irvine, near 99 Ranch Market, replacing the old Pho place. 

We ordered a championship clear soup beef noodle (清炖牛肉面）and soup dumplings. 

The word I would use to describe the soup is --"SOOTHING". It really is. The soup texture is between chicken broth and the ones you used to get at the stewed beef noodle place, and the color is like the ones you see in a Japanese ramen place if you order Miso Noodle Soup. 

It is not salty, which makes me very happy. The noodles are not too soft nor too chewy, I would actually give a 5 star on the noodle itself. As far as the beef...I wish there were more of them, as they were really yummy too.

Too bad they ran out of the shrimp & luffa melon soup dumpling. But the pork ones were just great... You have to really eat them while they were steaming hot (well, maybe not, but at least try them while they were still warm... lol you know what I mean), otherwise the soup would all be absorbed by the dumpling skin.

Ok I don't have a picture for the most important noodle soup, that's because... I forgot to take a picture as soon as the bowl was served to the table...sad face...Oh well, plenty of opportunities in the future I'm sure. 

Now there are three beef noodle places (possibly more) in that plaza. I wonder how the competition will head towards... I'm hungry now just by looking at the soup dumpling photo above. So I shall stop typing now and go to bed.

Chilly in OC...Night!

Lao Dong Beef Noodle Soup at Irvine 老董牛肉面
http://www.yelp.com/biz/lao-dong-beef-noodles-irvine
5414 Walnut Ave
Irvine, CA 92604
(949) 653-5728