Noodlecat

Jonathon Sawyer is one of the names keeping Cleveland on the culinary radar. His restaurants receive accolades from publications like Bon Appetit and Food & Wine magazine, and the chef has made appearances on Iron Chef on The Food Network. Noodlecat is the fusion ramen project from Team Sawyer. Since the restaurant is looking into opening a location in central Ohio, I decided to check out the West Side Market location and get a sneak preview while in Cleveland.

While ramen shops often offer little in the way of choices for meatless diners, Noodlecat has plenty of options for vegetarians and vegans. The menu is coded to mark vegetarian dishes. There are vegetarian ramen bowls, salads and meatless bao sandwiches. Vegan items had to be requested at the counter, but could be accommodated. The menu is a Yankee take on traditional Japanese noodle houses with a focus on local ingredients.

The smoked tomato coconut curry udon possessed notes that were both Japanese and Thai. The kombu broth suspended udon noodles, poached tofu, bamboo, scallions, potatoes and roasted sesame seeds. The understated base was mildly spicy, and the richness was a perfect vehicle for the wheat noodles and the crunchy veggies.

The veggie bao was stuffed with sprouts, mushrooms, cucumber, carrots, radishes and red onions. The soft roll had a nice coating of a sweet hoisin-like sauce. 

The sit-down restaurant has an expanded menu with more choices than the West Side Market stall. Both locations are worth checking out. I plan on frequenting the Columbus Noodlecat if and when it opens.

Gia Lai

Gia Lai is a Vietnamese restaurant in the Legacy Village shopping center in Lyndhurst near Cleveland. The decor is modern, and the menu offers fresh takes on Vietnamese classics with a large number of vegetarian dishes. One whole page of the dinner menu consists of all vegetarian dishes.

The vegetarian pho should help Cleveland residents embrace the winter chill. The rich, clear mushroom broth has citrus accents, and it is a perfect backdrop for the mountains of soft and crispy tofu, rice noodles, veggies including pea pods, hot peppers, carrots, bean sprouts, leafy greens, baby corn, mushrooms, green onions, cauliflower and peppers, alongside Sriracha sauce, a sweet hoisin and fresh garnishes. The bowl is the size of a hot tub, and it could feed a small army.

The vegetable spring rolls were fresh, and they were served with a spicy peanut sauce that added a rich note to the noodles and sauteed veggies inside the cold roll. 

The menu also offers a number of Chinese dishes. The cuisine is modern with fusion accents more so that a by-the-book traditional Vietnamese restaurant. Those willing to overlook some of these characteristics should be pleased by the fresh, flavorful fare.  

Mashita Noodle Bowl

Mashita Noodle Bowl is a food cart that serves ramen and other Japanese noodle dishes. While the traditional broth is prepared with pork, there are vegetarian sauces on the menu, and they capably prepare vegetarian and vegan dishes to order.

The choice of noodles was traditional and spicy ramen, as well as Korean sweet potato noodles traditionally called japchae. There is a limited selection of seasonal veggie toppings which included squash, zucchini and mushrooms.

The vegetarian preparations are cold. There are enough options and sides to create customized orders. There is also soy sauce and Sriracha to tinker with the taste profile of the dish.

Mashita can be located with Twitter and Facebook.

Hae Paul's

Hae Paul's is a new Korean restaurant Downtown. Operated by standout chef Paul Yow and his wife Hae Ran, Hae Paul's prepares classic Korean dishes as well as other dishes rooted in Korean tradition but fused with Mexican elements.

Service at Hae Paul's is quick, which bodes well for the Downtown lunch crowd. The server capably answered all questions about vegetarian dining concerns as well as those of the "what is that, exactly?" variety.

Interestingly, all of the items on the menu that don't list meat or fish as an ingredient are vegetarian, and most of the other items can be prepared for vegetarians. Prices are reasonable for the exceptional quality. 

The mung bean cake is served on a bed of greens dressed with vinegar and sweet chili oil. The mung bean patties have a light texture with layers of earthy flavor.

The green pea dip with crispy pita tastes great, but its name does little to describe what comes on the plate. The peas were chickpeas, the green was an herbal dressing and the pita was toasted but hardly crispy. While the dish was successful, its description could use some fine tuning.

The jap chae are sweet potato noodles tossed with a rich soy sauce, carrots, green onions, green peppers, spinach and shiitake mushrooms. The noodles are a light vehicle that carries the flavor of the dish. The vegetables add a nice textural contrast.

The Korrito, a Korean burrito, is a star on the menu. When requested vegetarian, the grilled tortilla is stuffed with sticky barley rice, a spicy black soybean hummus, carrots, red onions and romaine lettuce. The Korrito is served with a deep soy marinade and a candied jalapeño sauce that is both sweet and smoky. 

Orders are served with a variety of side dishes. The slaw had a light essence with a hint of smoke. The potato wedges were thinly sliced with a perfect crunch.

Dessert options seem to change regularly. 

Hae Paul's should quickly establish itself as a go-to destination for lunch. With fresh, exotic flavors and fair prices, it should be on everybody's Downtown dining radar.

Fresh 50

Fresh 50 is a new fast-casual Asian spot Downtown in the the recently vacated Spinelli's Deli location. It offers build-your-own rice and noodle dishes as well as salads and wraps with a variety of sauces and dressings.

The interior of Fresh 50 is mostly unchanged from the layout at Spinelli's. Orders take less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Vegetarian dishes are essentially veggie stir fries with the exception of the salad and sandwich. It might be nice to offer a vegetarian protein like tofu, which would pair nicely with Asian sauces.

The choice of vegetables includes traditional salad and sandwich standards, as well as cooked zucchini and squash or broccoli and mushrooms. Sauces include a sweet soy, teriyaki and salad dressings like ranch and Asian balsamic vinaigrette.

Portions are fairly priced. Everything is less than $7. Sauces can be applied individually or combined to make interesting hybrids.

The concept of fast-casual Asian for lunch is strong. Additional tweaks to service combined with a vegetarian protein source would give Fresh 50 some staying power.

Urban Belly

Urban Belly is Bill Kim's flagship establishment. It is a Pan-Asian restaurant with communal dining arrangement specializing in dumplings and noodles. It is a cool spot in a strip mall on Chicago's Northwest side.

I spent a good deal of space singing Chef Kim's praises in my review of his latest operation, Belly Shack. He generates a great deal of buzz because his restaurants are fun and offer a lot of bang for the buck.

The chairs at the long tables are built from wood from salvaged Indonesian ships. The decor is minimal, understated and inviting. There is a fairly brisk turnover of the seats.

While there are no vegetarian dumplings listed on the menu, Urban Belly offers the squash dumplings prepared without bacon. The dumplings were garnished with daikon, green onions and tangerines. They were stuffed with squash that had a spicy accent. The veggie squash dumplings were a subtly sweet and absolutely sublime.

The Asian egg noodles consisted of a bathtub-sized bowl of delicious noodles, fried crispy on the ends and soft in the middle, in a chili garlic broth with eggplant and tofu cubes. The massive portion provided plenty of satisfying flavors the run the gamut from spicy to vegetal to savory.

The Szechwan wrinkled green beans were a delightful take on a Chinese classic. The rich, spicy sauce was accented with crunchy almonds that add another layer of texture to a dish that already possesses a pile of flavor.

Prices are reasonable, and although there are limited choices for vegetarians, the options are good enough to make Urban Belly a foodie destination.

Urban Belly

Two Birds with One Stone

I'm going to save myself some trouble and write up these two vegetarian friendly lunch spots in Victorian Village by combining them into one review. This will save you from having to read two separate posts worth of my meandering prose.

The two places are located right next to each other by the Giant Eagle on Neil. Spinelli's Deli offers all the staples of a typical deli, including the requisite vegetarian sammie--the Village Veggie (pictured above). It was prepared on focaccia bread with chipotle mayo (I held the mayo), roasted red peppers, green peppers, red onions, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and veggie cream cheese.

The menu also features a number of salads and even a vegan soup, but the sandwich is the main attraction for the vegetarian crowd. The bagels and cream cheese also look great.

Right next door to Spinelli's is Oodles Noodle and Dumpling Bar . Although Oodles offered far more selections for the vegetarian diner, I was less than impressed with the quality of the food. The interior was stylish, but the restaurant lags far behind places like Noodles and Company in terms of the quality level of the fare.

The presentation of the vegetarian ma po tofu was sloppy. The tofu and veggies were slapped on a bed of rice without care as to symmetry. The veggie egg roll was overloaded with the taste of old oil.

Perhaps I will have to go back and give the place a second try. There are a number of other vegetarian items on the menu, and perhaps I tried the only two bad items on the menu. Something tells me that this is not the case.

After my lunch rendezvous in Victorian Village, I'm going to have to say that Spinelli's is indeed the vegetarian dining champion of that shopping plaza. Oodles Noodles was vegetarian friendly, and the decor was sharp, but I left wanting something more. You can look at my pictures as evidence of Spinelli's victory and Oodles' defeat.

Ooodles of Noodles-Spinellis Deli

Lucky House

Cheap Chinese food can be a dangerous proposition. You really don't know if you're eating gobs of MSG or fried mystery meat, and if you choose poorly, you'll be paying for it in the morning. If you are looking to avoid the MSG hangover, I can attest that Lucky House in Westerville is a safe option.

The staff is gracious...and seemed to speak little English. They screwed up my dinner order by putting fried rice with it when I ordered steamed rice. Other than that minor detail, the staff was very attentive. I enjoyed the Chinese shorthand written on the table to keep track of who ordered what.

But the food is very good considering its price, and it's MSG-free with a decent number of vegetarian dinner and noodle options. My appetizer was the sesame noodles (pictured above), a Chinese classic noodle dish served at room temperature or slightly chilled in peanut sauce with sesame seeds. The plate is enormous and had to be shared by the whole table.

My dinner was Szechwan tofu, made in the classic spicy brown sauce with green peppers, carrots and onions. It was tasty and also amply portioned.

The decor is pretty classic 1970s Chinese restaurant cheese. The table cloth is paper, and most everything on the walls and ceiling is red. This might explain the massive takeout business done at Lucky House.

It might not be the highest end dining, but you do squeeze a lot of value out of the chow here. Check out the pictures below.

Lucky House

Noodles & Company

Lunch. It's the middle of the sandwich that is the three meals of the day. While you have to eat a good breakfast in order to start the day off right, you need an equally healthy lunch in order to keep moving along through the day. After two days worth of lunch at Noodles & Company, I'm grooving along strong enough to review it in a blog entry.

Noodles and Co. is an amalgamation of cuisines that rely on noodles to starch up their daily intake of calories. Obviously, Italy and other nations that surround the Mediterranean Sea eat more than their share of pasta. However, history has demonstrated that noodles were a part of the Chinese diet as early as 3000 B.C.E. These two cultures came to the mixing pot that is America, and Americans of course created their own particular noodle delicacies.

Noodles & Company prepares Asian, Mediterranean and American food, and they are careful to be able to make just about anything according to specific dietary restrictions. Any of the dishes can be made with organic tofu to increase protein in your meal, and meals can also come with side salads or soups.

I sampled the Wisconsin mac and cheese (pictured above), made with traditional elbow pasta, creamy cheese sauce and cheddar jack cheese. The full size bowl plus drink and roll cost about $8 and was well made and filling.

I also tried a trio of Indonesian peanut sautee, tofu and green salad. The trio is lighter eating than a full bowl of food, but the variety is excellent.

The staff is very helpful selecting vegetarian choices for you, and the menu is available for takeout. Check out the pictures below.

Noodles & Company

Pei Wei Asian Bistro

Pei Wei Asian Diner is a newer concept from the P.F. Chang's folks that is popping up like weeds (or Starbucks) all across the United States. This is basically a Pan-Asian noodle shop with counter service that makes for a decent power lunch option.

There are a number of vegetarian options marked by the lovely hippie leaf logo on the menu, making the items easy to spot by vegetarians who are incapable of reading (although, come to think of it, illiterate vegetarians wouldn't be able to read the text at the bottom of the menu explaining the veggie symbol's meaning. It is a useful gesture for saving my time, nonetheless.).

The spring rolls were good if uninspiring. The noodle and rice dishes are fairly big portions, and none of the dishes cost more than $9. I tried the blazing noodles, a chow fun noodle dish (a fettuccine-like rice pasta) made with tomato black pepper sauce, broccoli, carrots, scallions, pea pods and cilantro with tofu. The sauce was flavorful and medium spicy, but I definitely would have liked the five inch broccoli stalks and the tofu slabs to have been cut more finely while I was eating with chop sticks. I do possess mad chop stick skillz, but the pieces were so large that I ended up eating in installments off of the sticks or taking down a whole piece in one ridiculous bite.

Then again, it was all made up for by my fascination with people who can't eat with chop sticks. I love watching people labor with the Asian cutlery, and I love it even more when they tap out and have to ask for silverware. In retrospect, maybe they figured something out with these four-inch tofu blocks and broccoli trunks that I hadn't. Maybe I'm really the dummy.

Regardless of my personal shortcomings, Pei Wei is fairly priced and should be attractive to those with a limited amount of time for lunch that want to eat vegetables for lunch and not deep fried animal goop from Kentuckyfriedbellkingmcdonalds. It is a decent option that isn't nearly as quality control driven as some of the swankier Asian bistros, but probably is economic enough to churn out a consistent business all the same. Check out the pictures below.

Pei Wei