By Andrea Lin/
For the Journal
It took several drive-bys and a few friends’ recommendations before I finally realized that Asian Noodle Bar in Downtown Albuquerque was both locally owned and worth investigating.
Even national media had discovered it, garnering a mention in a major food magazine. At last, it was time for me to trudge on over and see what the fuss was about. Quite simply, it is expected combinations with a unique flair. Extensive Asian dishes from stir fry to noodle soups stud a menu loaded with pictures for appetite-whetting.
The proprietress ensures that the uniqueness is married with high quality, as many of the recipes are her own from years of cooking for friends and family. Luckily, when enough people pestered her to open her own place, she yielded, and now her creations can be had by the city at large.
A quick glance at the menu (or at other diners’ tables) will ensure that you order with haste from the appetizer menu. My favorite so far is the grilled meatballs ($5.95), stiff and springy like they should be at any Eastern restaurant, served with a sauce that will first be sweet on the tongue before giving way to a mildly pleasant heat from red chiles. Fresh spring rolls ($5.25) could be noteworthy if the rice paper enclosing them had been delicately soft rather than a bit too dried out and chewy. Striking a balance is hard, as I’ve learned from assembling them myself, but it can be done without having the contents spill out all over the plate.
My companion sipped his Thai iced tea before deciding that it wasn’t to his taste — I thought it a bit sweet for my palate but I liked its pleasant dimension of flavor that could have come from galangal, a relative of ginger.
Our entrees were everything you could want in a fast-casual place like this: hearty, plentiful and inexpensive. Stir-fried noodles with hot basil and chicken ($8.95) proved too much to eat at one sitting, and the enormous bowl of soup I found before me was nothing less than a tureen. A tureen of aromatic Sukiyaki ($10.95), that is, dosed with clear noodles, beef slices and whole shrimp. This is a soup far less brawny than Pho, for the stock is clear and holds a hint of sweetness from the addition of sake.
Between sips of the hot soup, I kept glancing over at the open kitchen, furiously working away to turn out more dishes for the people still coming in the door. Furrowed brows as order tickets were scanned would turn to serene concentration as the pans started working on the hot stoves, and once in a while a smile of satisfaction would creep across someone’s face. Happy cooks are always a good sign.
In a bowl to my left was a Sunomono salad ($4.95), composed of cucumbers marinated in another sweet broth, garnished with imitation crab meat. By now the sweetness in each dish I had was getting to be a little much, so I started nibbling on that excellent hot basil stir-fry instead, enjoying the salty warmth.
Throughout, we noticed the eaters were a mixture of regulars who knew what they wanted, and visitors from other cities who thought this looked like a good place to go for a quick meal. Indeed, the Asian Noodle Bar can keep both groups happy, with pleasant service that just keeps turning out homestyle food all day long and far into the evening — a rarity Downtown.
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