Big Bowl Noodles
You know, I think if you just plop a Chinese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, people will be there eating during lunch. Quality of the food does not seem to matter. The thing is, I do not think you need to be a Chinese food fiend (like myself) to be able to understand if it is good or not. You will know if you like it. Big Bowl Noodles is a decent place for lunch, but it does not come close to unseating Szechuan Gourmet as my favorite spot. As a quick and filling substitute, Big Bowl Noodles is a decent choice.
Big Bowl Noodles is on sixth ave, a few blocks south of Bryant Park. It is easy to miss it, since there is no reason to roam around the upper 30s in that neighborhood. When you walk by around lunch time, Big Bowl is always packed with midtown lunchers. I tried their beef noodle soup this past winter and came away unimpressed but decided to give them another shot with other items on the menu.
First up, we have Noodles with Peking Meat Sauce which is actually Zha Jiang Mian. Translation? Noodles with meat sauce. The sauce is meaty with little chunks of vegetable interspersed throughout. The peas, carrots, celery, and mushroom chunks makes this a balanced meal that lets you tell mom that you are eating your vegetables... See! FIBER POWER! Anyway...
This is my favorite dish of the three that I have tried from Big Bowl Noodles. One thing I disliked about this dish was that it leans on the greasier side and you notice this as when you are close to finishing the meal. Still, I like it, and at $7 dollars, this is decently priced for lunch in Midtown.
And we move onto pork spare ribs with black bean sauce. This is a lunch special item that you can get with white rice or egg fried rice. Do yourself a favor and skip the egg fried rice. I still have not eaten a decent fried rice as part of a lunch special. Pork spare ribs with black bean sauce is one of my favorite lunch special item. If you get the hot oil on the side, and add it to the ribs, it really becomes a great lunch, if you like spicy food.
I am not sure if the sauce is as full of black bean flavor as I would like, but the sauce is very delicious to eat along with the rice. There used to be a Chinese joint called Oriental Cottage or something, and they sucked at everything, except spare rib with black bean sauce. It was odd how they could only make one thing right but still had business... either way, I missed getting that dish and Big Bowl Noodles might serve as a replacement if craving for ribs with black bean sauce hits me again.
Overall I think Big Bowl Noodles is passable, if you are in the neighborhood. This place probably would never become a regular staple in my array of luncheon spots, but it just goes to show that if you find something you like, you should stick with it.
Big Bowl Noodles
1011 6th Ave .
New York, NY 10018
212-869-0888
"zha jiang mian" should not have "peas, carrots, celery, and mushroom chunks." Maybe carrots and celery if they're diced very fine, for aromatics, but peas and mushroom?! That's not chinese food.
Ang
May 7, 2008 11:41 pm
Nonsense. It is chinese food if chinese people are the owners! DUh!!!!
Danny
May 8, 2008 12:18 am
I've gone to this place a handful of times already, enough so that the staff recognizes me...and they happily fill my wine glasses to the fullest!! (Hey, ever notice these types of Asian joints sell liquor for cheap? Wine at Big Bowl is $4.95 a glass--used to be $3.95 before the dark days of the econ crisis.)
It's very convenient, as I pass it everyday on my way home from the office to the PATH station. It's too much effort to go to C-town, so I settle for Big Bowl which is fine by me because though it's not 100% authentic, it's decent enough to warrant frequent visits. Their chow fun is da bomb and I will have to try the noodles with peking meat sauce you've indicated above.
Dani
October 12, 2008 2:20 pm