Singapore Stir-fry Rice Noodle - Seafood Town

$8.21 (Tax Included)

I stumbled upon this restaurant because my car's tire was flattened by a nail probably when I was driving  through Los Angeles (this was the 3rd time my car's tire picked up a nail in 2017).  This restaurant is right next to America's Tire Store which repaired my tire for free.  I walked over here for lunch while my tire was being worked on.  It was quite busy here during lunch hour, so I thought it must be great!  An immediate check on Yelp confirmed my initial assessment.  But was I disappointed!  May be I had ordered the wrong dish?  It wasn't too bad, it was just not good enough to entice me to finish half the plate even when I was literally starving.  It was just not good enough for me to want to take home the leftover.  I fished out all the slices of Chinese BBQ pork in the noodle and discarded them because they smelled bad to me.  I understand that  the idea of Singapore stir fry rice noodle was to put the previous dinner's leftover into good use. But this days old Chinese BBQ pork was just too stinky for me.  How many days old exactly was this Pork?

I love curries, and love the food of Singapore.  But the spice in this rice noodle just bothered me.  I couldn't figure out what was the culprit.  I ordered this dish because I was craving for the Singapore Stir-fry rice noodle that I once had.  A year ago when I visited Hong Kong, a friend took me to a hole in the corner kind of mom and pop cafe and she ordered it.  It was so good. The rice noodle had this dryness of fried rice, but lighter in weight.  The hint of curry made it so fragrant and those slices of BBQ pork were totally delicious.  I guess I can't expect to find the same kind of quality in this American suburb.   May be I should have ordered orange chicken instead... This is my first time visiting this restaurant.  I don't think this is going to be one of my favorite Chinese restaurants as of now. I should have known by the demographics of the customers here.  There was no Chinese speaking customer even though it was quite packed during lunch hour.  The customers were Hispanic Americans, Filipino Americans, African Americans, a handful white elderly Americans and a few senior Asian  Americans, who were all speaking English.  Once a Chinese friend told me, "If you don't hear customers speak Mandarin or Cantonese in a Chinese restaurant, the Chinese food there isn't going to be great."  This place is also stale looking. I had a much better experience in Ruiji Szechuan Restaurant even though the cuisine type isn't quite the same. Ruiji is cleaner and is  just so much more pleasant to visit. Besides, I enjoyed the food there very much  when I was there last time.

This restaurant offers very cheap price for the portions of food,  but I left behind 60% of my plate.  I don't think the low price did anything to save me money.  The ingredients used in this dish was just of poor quality.  The free hot and sour soup also stank. I love hot and sour soup but I couldn't consume the one in this restaurant. While I didn't have a great lunch, I ended up getting very good customer service from Stephen the technician at America's Tire Store next door.  Stephen was so polite, smiley and friendly. Such demeanor really helped me feel calmer since I was so stressed out from this annoying flat tire incident.  He repaired my tire for free!  In my opinion, America's Tire Store is a lot more efficient and customer friendly than Just Tires.  

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