Fourth Avenue eatery flares with pyrotechnics from the kitchen and buzzes with an appreciative clientele
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Suzanne Goligher and Robyn Donio serve up The Noodle Box’s high octane dishes in takeout boxes. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
You know how we think we’re so hip to spicy heat? “Mild” is Pablum so we order “medium” as a matter of course. Even “hot,” we figure, isn’t exactly flicking a Bic to our tongues.
At the Noodle Box, beware! The heat isn’t adjusted for the rosebud tongues of North Americans. After an encounter with their medium hot, I thought I should correct their heat-level guide to read first-, second- and third-degree burns. Seriously, you’d better watch your tongue.
In spite of its incinerating capabilities, The Noodle Box has line-ups at lunch and dinner, eager for their fast-food style of noodle and rice dishes from Asia. Price is part of it — the menu tops off at $14 for the slow-cooked lamb curry with jasmine rice. The rest are about $10 and for that, you get plenty of fuel to burn.
It’s also a cool place with its 20-foot-high ceilings, wall of glass facing Fourth and good music that competes with the buzz of activity including the cacophony at the six wok stations in the open kitchen. Flames leap, sauces sizzle, cooks hustle behind the counter.
I like the Chinese-style takeout containers that main meals are served in. Inevitably, there are leftovers to take home, so it cuts out a step. Appies are served in porcelain versions of the takeout containers.
The regular menu board features Tom Yum soup; Singapore Cashew Curry; Cambodian, Thai and Malaysian curries; Black Bean and Garlic Hokkein Noodles; Thai Chow Mein; Teriyaki Box; Spicy Peanut Noodle Box; Malaysian Fried Rice and Chili Plum Hokkein Noodles. As well, there are daily specials suited to the season. Comfort foods, all.
On the appies side, there are spring rolls, satay, fried dumplings and Malaysian roti.
Noodle Box is the third of a series. The first two are in downtown Victoria, and it all began five years ago when Nick Crooks and Jodi Mann returned from Asia and opened a streetcart with hawker style food. The city shut them down so they opened up a shop.
Suzanne Goligher and Robyn Donio came on board to run the Vancouver location. She runs the front and he oversees the pyrotechnics in the kitchen. Most of the sauces are house-made although they bring in their black bean sauce, dumplings and roti. The noodles come from the delightfully named Double Happiness and Hon’s.
Getting back to the chili factor, there’s a water tap at the counter where diners (including me) instinctively go to douse fires in their mouth. It’s counter-intuitive but water doesn’t help. Capsaicin, the irritant in chili pepper, is better quelled by a fatty or fat-dissolving liquid, like milk or beer. (It’s not a temperature thing so much as upset nerve endings.) Since Noodle Box doesn’t sell milk, better order a beer.
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THE NOODLE BOX
Overall: 3 1/2
Food: 3 1/2
Ambience: 3 1/2
Service: 3
Price: $
1867 West Fourth Ave., 604-734-1310.
Open Monday to Thursday, noon to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday to 10 p.m.; Sunday to 8 p.m.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars. ([email protected])
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
