NYC Eats: Lunch at Tasty hand-pulled noodles Inc.

Why it is is "Inc" I can't say. I doubt this tasty hole in the wall is incorporated.

For lunch on our first day, I had remembered a noodle place that chef Guy Fieri described as the Best Thing (He) Ever Ate--- in a bowl. Tasty hand-pulled noodles is in a back alley (1 Doyers St) in Chinatown. It was a little crowded, and not the classiest--- and there's a bit of a strange smell in the air. But by the end of our meal (which cost about $30 for four of us), the only thing I was disappointed about was the fact that I did not get to see the cooks actually hand pull the noodles.

The place is very small, and it was packed at lunch time, so we had to sit downstairs, which is probably why I couldn't see the noodle making. It's very cheap (each choice less than $6) and fast. Water is served in plastic cups, as are sides of cilantro and scallions.

They brought scissors to cut the pinky-finger thick noodles in the soup, which had a salty, beefy broth as well as some chicken, shitake mushrooms, bok choy and spinach. The homemade noodles were the best part though, even though they were sometimes hard to slurp up. They have a different consistency -chewier, perhaps - that tips you off they're made right there. There's also a ton of variety of thicknesses etc to choose from.

The thinner knife peeled noodles in a standard fried noodle dish also made the dish quite a bit fresher tasting, but they didn't stand out as much when covered in oil and veggies.

Both the crispy pan-fried and steamed dumplings were also top notch, though not dissimilar from Mother's or Dumpling House on Spadina, with their simple, pork and chive, or chicken and mushroom filling ($4.75/10 pc). This made me happy that at least our Chinatown dumplings are comparable to the ones in NYC! Mmmmmm dumplings.

Consensus from my family seemed to be that, although possibly the cheapest, this seemed to be one of everyone's favourite meals.