Publication Date: Friday Apr 2, 1999

Restaurant Review: Noodling around Castro Street

For centuries, cooks all over the world have made pastes of flour and water, formed these pastes into cool shapes, and dropped them into cooking liquids. Noodles. But every country puts its own spin on things, a fact that is easily ascertained on Mountain View's Castro Street. The strip has a such a wealth of noodle houses we felt compelled to immerse ourselves in the variety and let readers in on what we found out. The greatest concentration of Castro Street noodle houses are geared to pho (pronounced "fuh," like foot without the "t"), the Vietnamese national breakfast. It's a cheap one-dish meal, with a huge tangle of soft, pale white rice noodles immersed in a rich beef broth made from simmered shinbones. The most basic pho comes with slices of eye-of-round steak, but equally prized are the versions with soft, gelatinous beef tendon, tripe or little meatballs. Broth is usually a little bland, all the better to doctor with a plate of crunchy bean sprouts, wedges of lemon and rounds of jalapeno along with a swirl of the ubiquitous Sriracha chili sauce or sweet hoisin.

Chinese and Thai noodle houses along Castro Street purvey things that aren't too far from pho--but they're hardly faux pho. You still slurp up noodle soup with the combined efforts of a plastic soup spoon and a pair of chopsticks, but the broth may be flavored with curry or sweet five-spice powder and crowded with things like wontons or boiled eggs.

We didn't reach every noodle place in downtown--but, we believe, we hit the main ones. And, after eating 400 zillion noodles in two weeks, we were sure in the mood for some cheeseburgers and fried mozzarella sticks.

Oh, but that's the topic for another tale. For now, back to pho. Here are the findings of our Castro Street noodle walk:

Vietnamese noodle Tungkee Noodle House: Known locally as TK Noodle, Tungkee is the king of noodle houses on Castro Street. It's the biggest, the most crowded, and the best bargain. The decor is strictly of the fast food nature (which makes sense since Tungkee is a chain) and the most noticeable adornments are the big, colorful posters depicting bowls of mysterious-looking soup dishes.

The beef ball noodle soup was an acquired taste, with meatballs so rubbery that they might have ricocheted off the table if dropped. The broth was underseasoned but easily rectified with a squirt of Sriracha hot sauce or one of the other numerous condiments available. The chow mein was more reasonably sized than the huge soups, with a fair smattering of mediocre shrimp, broccoli and onion. On the fatty meat scale, TK scores someplace in the middle.

The prices are remarkable, even for the cheap eats world of pho and noodles. For $10, two people can get more food than they can possibly eat in one sitting. The large noodle and vermicelli soups run $2.50 to $3.50. And the best part? Get this: Domestic beers go for $1.30 and imports are $1.60.

Pho Hoa: Perhaps the most hospitable to pho neophytes, Pho Hoa is bright and cheery, with freshly-painted teal walls and great menus that provide detailed pictures of the dishes and ingredients for the uninitiated. In fact, this chain-restaurant menu offers sections devoted to training-wheels pho (soup for beginners), garden-variety pho, and stunt pho for the true adventurers, all priced at $4.20 for a small bowl (enormous) and $5.10 for a large (scary big).

The broth at Pho Hoa is perhaps the best we tasted--clear and savory, it didn't need too much from the fixings plate of lemon wedges, jalapenos, fronds of fresh basil and bean sprouts. We went with the basic steak pho which brought a mound of paper-thin meat slices cooked strictly by the piping hot broth. A cold vermicelli bowl was equally successful, with smoky marinated pork slices and a pile of little fried spring rolls to liven up the simple vermicelli noodles, crunchy iceberg and carrots.

We were distraught to find Pho Hoa has no liquor license, but it gave us a chance to branch out. The mysterious-sounding "blended strawberry" turned out to be a laudable, straightforward strawberry shake, and the iced coffee comes in a cute little Vietnamese coffee pot with a hidden layer of sweetened condensed milk to add a little luxury.

Pho to Chau: Around the corner off of Castro Street is Pho to Chau, a no-frills purveyor of pho. The restaurant is a simple box lit by neon tubes and each table is equipped with a lazy Susan stocked with extra soup spoons, condiment bowls and chopsticks. The restaurant's sign is a neon-yellow noodle bowl with squiggly steam lines, so we entered with hot soup in mind.

The pho with eye-of-round steak and fat brisket brought a pale and opaque broth that didn't hold a lot of promise. To the contrary, the broth's flavor was assertive and balanced. Too bad the fat brisket was so fatty these Western palates were utterly repelled.

For comparison's sake, we opted for a bowl of cold vermicelli noodles as well. This time it brought a big plate of undressed noodles dotted with iceberg, crushed peanuts, cucumber hunks, carrot rounds and little rollups of grilled beef cradling grilled onions. The whole thing was especially refreshing and salad-like with a spoonful of rice-vinegar dressing. As a final test, we nabbed an order of Vietnamese eggrolls, which at Pho to Chau would have been pleasant had the oil been freshly changed.

Kim's Restaurant: With a full complement of inexpensive Vietnamese dishes, pho is not necessarily the focus here. We started out with a couple of Tsingtao beers, the pride of Qingdao, as we perused the menu. Beginning with a pair of rice paper-wrapped spring rolls, we dabbed the simple rice-stick rolls in overly sweet peanut sauce while we waited for our well-done flank brisket pho and our egg noodle soup with barbecued pork.

The former brought a huge swirl of soft, white noodles with a peppering of scallion, cilantro and slivers of white onion along with translucent flaps of fatty meat. The broth, bland, was quickly doctored with our friend Sriracha and a squeeze of lemon and a handful of jalapeno rounds. The latter was a bowl the same size filled with vermicelli and broth tinged pink by the squares of sweet barbecued pork.

The restaurant itself is distinguished by some crazy psychedelic lamps and chandeliers. The seating is maroon leatherette booths with matching maroon tablecloths--not a lot of notable decoration or artwork. Service at Kim's is personable and nervous. Vegetarians take note: Kim's Restaurant offers a sizable number of meatless dishes, including a vegetarian appetizer menu.

Chinese noodles Food Street Restaurant: So maybe the name lacks any real descriptive power, and maybe the neon lighting racing down the sides of the restaurant is tacky, but Food Street is worth a visit. The majority of the menu is given over to noodle soups and braised noodle dishes.

Lacquered roast ducks hang near the entryway, but we ignored this specialty in our quest for noodles, only to find that we could try the sweet, smoky meat atop a steaming bowl of broth and rice noodles.

Braised noodle dishes tend to be a little more flavorful, pan-fried with a little soy and whatnot before being brought to the table. Feeling adventuresome, we opted for the pig's feet braised noodles. The pig's toes, complete with toenails, were daunting, although the meat was quite succulent and flavorful with the sticky, long noodles. As a precautionary measure we also ordered the chicken chow mein, a nice portion of familiar noodles, veggies and dark-meat chicken. Pretty much everything on the menu is between $2.95 and $4.50, and Tsingtaos are just $1.75.

Chef Wang's: A neon sign outside shows Chef Wang, clad in a blue chef's hat, pulling long noodles across his chest with big, hammy fists. Pulled noodles are the thing here--long slithery white noodles topped with a range of seafood, beef and vegetables in a simple broth. There are other Chinese dishes here, ranging from the banal (lemon chicken) to the peculiar (hot sauce pig ear), and a smattering of dim sum dumplings as well.

The Szechuan beef stew noodle soup ($4.50) is a good choice. The beef broth is rich and aromatic. The spicing is in the moderate-to-hot range. Other tempting noodle dishes include five-spiced beef soup noodles ($4.50), vegetable soup noodles ($4.50), and chicken with vegetable soup noodles ($4.50).

Thai noodles Amarin Thai Noodle House: By the time we got to Amarin, we were ready for something else. Another bowl of Vietnamese or Chinese noodles might have sent us over the edge. But pad Thai, now that's a different story. Perhaps the most ordered dish at Thai restaurants in America, pad Thai is a combination of pan-fried flat rice noodles, a sweet and sour sauce that is sparked with flavor from fish sauce and crushed peanuts, and your various collection of beef slices, shrimp and pork balls.

Amarin Thai Noodle House, next door to Amarin's regular restaurant, isn't much to look at--a big, lumpy goldfish swimming in a tank by the front door is the decor's redeeming quality. Try the curry noodle soup ($5.95) or steamed chicken and egg noodle soup ($4.95) and you won't have to worry about the decor. You'll be spending all your time slopping up tasty bites into your mouth.

Tungkee Noodle House, 401 Castro St., Mountain View, 965-1488

Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily

Pho Hoa, 220 Castro St., Mountain View, 969-5805

Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

Pho to Chau, 853 Villa St., Mountain View, 961-8069

Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

Kim's Restaurant, 368 Castro St., 967-2707

Hours: 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Food Street Restaurant, 292 Castro St., Mountain View, 961-8613

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

Chef Wang's, 212 Castro St., Mountain View, 969-4574

Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

Amarin Thai Noodle House, 160 Castro St., Mountain View, 966-8309

Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 5-10 p.m. Sunday 

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