Properly speaking, I think this place has a longer and more difficult name – 南国酒家広東炒麺. I’ve said it last week and I’ll say it again, why do these chains create one-off sub-brands? Do the guests in Tokyo Station really prefer to eat Cantonese-style fried noodles as opposed to the normal multi-disciplinary Chinese food served in the other branches (including the multi-building head store in Harajuku)?
In any event, I kinda like this kinda noodle now – it’s very thin noodles that are boiled and then deep-fried in the shape of a bowl (or a wire basket, more probably) and then topped with some type of thick sauce. At this restaurant, all you can really choose is the toppings. Just as the restaurant called to me from the directory board at the head of Kitchen Street, the San-Ra-Tan noodles, shredded bits with a lot of vinegar, called to me as soon as the menu was open.
The noodles were good – fried noodles and heavy sauce always go well together as far as I’m concerned – but I could have done better on ordering. There was little or no vinegar in the sauce, and it was almost completely vegetables other than some shreds of chicken. Not that I’m complaining about the veg, but you should watch out if you’re a dedicated meat eater. The veg were also a bit bland; I couldn’t tell what the predominant one was despite having ample time to consider all the thin sticks of it that I ate. If you go, I’d try one of the meat or seafood noodle sets. Everything comes with soup.
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