Table: Beefy Beef Noodle House
Beefy Beef Noodle house is a cash-only Taiwanese shop that specializes in beef noodle soup and their large array of bubble tea drinks. They are open late, and are located in a small plaza with free (but limited) parking.
I've been here a few times now, and generally the food seems kind of hit or miss, depending on the dishes. The service quality also seems variable, though generally they're nice. I remember that it became a little bit of an in-joke because everytime we came by for about a 3 month period, they would be playing the movie Titanic on their TV screens. But now they're showing regular TV programmes it seems, so they've moved on from their odd Titanic fascination!
House special beef noodle soup: comes with brisket, tendon, wontons, picked vegetables, and large bok choy pieces. All of their noodle soups you can pick the kind of noodle that you want. They don't have hand-pulled noodle, but they offer a selection of small (kind of like ramen sized), wide (as close to hand pulled as you can get), glass noodle, and I think rice noodle, but I don't recall the other options.
Anata ordered the brisket noodle here, which is the same thing as above, though only with brisket. I like the soup; it's got a very rich and beefy taste without being too MSG-tasting like some other places. The picked vegetables are really nice and enhance the sweetness of the marinade on the beef. The tendon has varied from being sticky and semi-crunchy with texture, so some pieces being very soft and melting in your mouth. I'm not too much a fan with the huge sized pieces of the bok choy, as they are a little difficult to eat with chopsticks.
I ordered the oyster pancake and it came swimming in a sweet and tangy chili sauce. I didn't find it spicy at all - a much milder version of the sweet thai chili sauce. The oyster pieces were quite large, which was a bonus, and they used potato starch or some other variant that made it really gluey and sticky. However, I thought it was really underseasoned and lacking in flavour without the sauce, and it was really swimming in some areas with being kind of watery, so I found it was really inconsistent. I wouldn't order it again :(
My friend ordered the chicken nuggets and soup, and selected the wide noodle. The broth is really plain and light, which was nice as the chicken is quite seasoned so it balances well. The chicken comes with fried parsley bits interspersed between, and they always add wonderful flavour. Due to the lightness of the broth is doesn't taste like there is any added MSG (it is difficult to avoid any whatsoever when even soy sauce can come with MSG in it these days)
I ordered the mini lamb hot pot, and it came with two side dishes and rice. The broth was pleasing and wonderful - much more lightly flavoured than I thought, and full of various subtleties from the lamb and what seemed like an underlying beef broth. There were huge pieces of tofu, glass noodles, and lamb chunks with bones. I liked everything about it except for the lamb, which I found very strongly tasting of the "stinky" meat taste. I'm not sure how to explain it, because it's not quite "gameyness" and I don't have a problem with the natural "lamb" flavour. I've had this happen before once when I attempted making soup from some leftover lamb bones, and the smell was pretty overwhelming, so much so that I threw the soup out :(
I think what made the taste worse was that the hot pot came with a side dish of some stinky tofu-fermented bean sauce that was very salty and added to the "stinky" taste. I don't usually have a problem with this kind of food, but maybe it's just the combination that day. Also, interestingly enough the hotpot fire underneath grew more and more until the flames were licking the sides of the pot and edging higher until I wasn't so certain about reaching in for more food. We had to call the server over to extinguish the flame, haha. It was just really weird that it went so high!
Drinks pictured are the ice cream coffee and the taro milk tea bubble teas. I wasn't quite expecting to get, literally, iced coffee with vanilla ice cream on top for my drink. It tasted good, but it was really rich and the coffee was pretty strong for me that I was starting to feel a little wired. I only managed half because I think it would have been overkill for one sitting.
My friend enjoyed her taro milk tea. It was made with fresh taro, which she loves. Be warned that the taro slush is made with powder! We had to clarify with the server. Anata likes to order the chocolatey ones, and I haven't been too adventurous with flavours here, but for the most part I haven't had anything that I don't like yet.
Overall the quality of the food and service seems decent. There have been a few occasions where getting the server's attention can be a little difficult, but usually it's when it's late and there's only one person for the whole restaurant, or if you are really indecisive and take too long to order... they can get a little miffed and make you feel like you're wasting their time. It's nice that it's open late, but it is cash-only so that's something to be mindful of.
I've been here a few times now, and generally the food seems kind of hit or miss, depending on the dishes. The service quality also seems variable, though generally they're nice. I remember that it became a little bit of an in-joke because everytime we came by for about a 3 month period, they would be playing the movie Titanic on their TV screens. But now they're showing regular TV programmes it seems, so they've moved on from their odd Titanic fascination!
House special beef noodle soup: comes with brisket, tendon, wontons, picked vegetables, and large bok choy pieces. All of their noodle soups you can pick the kind of noodle that you want. They don't have hand-pulled noodle, but they offer a selection of small (kind of like ramen sized), wide (as close to hand pulled as you can get), glass noodle, and I think rice noodle, but I don't recall the other options.
Anata ordered the brisket noodle here, which is the same thing as above, though only with brisket. I like the soup; it's got a very rich and beefy taste without being too MSG-tasting like some other places. The picked vegetables are really nice and enhance the sweetness of the marinade on the beef. The tendon has varied from being sticky and semi-crunchy with texture, so some pieces being very soft and melting in your mouth. I'm not too much a fan with the huge sized pieces of the bok choy, as they are a little difficult to eat with chopsticks.
I ordered the oyster pancake and it came swimming in a sweet and tangy chili sauce. I didn't find it spicy at all - a much milder version of the sweet thai chili sauce. The oyster pieces were quite large, which was a bonus, and they used potato starch or some other variant that made it really gluey and sticky. However, I thought it was really underseasoned and lacking in flavour without the sauce, and it was really swimming in some areas with being kind of watery, so I found it was really inconsistent. I wouldn't order it again :(
My friend ordered the chicken nuggets and soup, and selected the wide noodle. The broth is really plain and light, which was nice as the chicken is quite seasoned so it balances well. The chicken comes with fried parsley bits interspersed between, and they always add wonderful flavour. Due to the lightness of the broth is doesn't taste like there is any added MSG (it is difficult to avoid any whatsoever when even soy sauce can come with MSG in it these days)
I ordered the mini lamb hot pot, and it came with two side dishes and rice. The broth was pleasing and wonderful - much more lightly flavoured than I thought, and full of various subtleties from the lamb and what seemed like an underlying beef broth. There were huge pieces of tofu, glass noodles, and lamb chunks with bones. I liked everything about it except for the lamb, which I found very strongly tasting of the "stinky" meat taste. I'm not sure how to explain it, because it's not quite "gameyness" and I don't have a problem with the natural "lamb" flavour. I've had this happen before once when I attempted making soup from some leftover lamb bones, and the smell was pretty overwhelming, so much so that I threw the soup out :(
I think what made the taste worse was that the hot pot came with a side dish of some stinky tofu-fermented bean sauce that was very salty and added to the "stinky" taste. I don't usually have a problem with this kind of food, but maybe it's just the combination that day. Also, interestingly enough the hotpot fire underneath grew more and more until the flames were licking the sides of the pot and edging higher until I wasn't so certain about reaching in for more food. We had to call the server over to extinguish the flame, haha. It was just really weird that it went so high!
Drinks pictured are the ice cream coffee and the taro milk tea bubble teas. I wasn't quite expecting to get, literally, iced coffee with vanilla ice cream on top for my drink. It tasted good, but it was really rich and the coffee was pretty strong for me that I was starting to feel a little wired. I only managed half because I think it would have been overkill for one sitting.
My friend enjoyed her taro milk tea. It was made with fresh taro, which she loves. Be warned that the taro slush is made with powder! We had to clarify with the server. Anata likes to order the chocolatey ones, and I haven't been too adventurous with flavours here, but for the most part I haven't had anything that I don't like yet.
Overall the quality of the food and service seems decent. There have been a few occasions where getting the server's attention can be a little difficult, but usually it's when it's late and there's only one person for the whole restaurant, or if you are really indecisive and take too long to order... they can get a little miffed and make you feel like you're wasting their time. It's nice that it's open late, but it is cash-only so that's something to be mindful of.