Pasadena Weekly
August 10, 2006

Noodlemania
Discover a caboodle of interests at Pasadena’s Noodle World
By Dan O’Heron
As a restaurant writer, I deserve to be sliced up for taking this
long to set down any word about Noodle World, which opened
six years ago in Old Pasadena and swiftly blossomed in popularity
among boulevard regulars. With an office around the corner, I
was favorably situated to join the crowd, but the original name
— Boba World — seemed too pedestrian for me to bother.
However, after many friends kept making a case about fine food,
art, fun, fiscal therapy and slush funding, I finally paid a visit.
And these days, to atone for lost times, I’m seen frequently
as a supplicant at the gates.

Located in the space once occupied by Tommy Tang’s, whose
flaring headband streaked the room with jubilant colors, Noodle
World surprised me with much more excitement than celebrity
provides.

Its art is star quality. Upon entering, your eye will catch two
large, mixed-media paintings. They look like Pablo Picasso, in
a rare moment of departure from twisted spoons and cracked
bowls, had some fun with a frying pan and a seafood platter.
Owner John Mekpongsatorn told me he commissioned Kamol
Tassananchalee — “The Picasso of Thailand” — to do these
and other works that splash the walls of the restaurant’s quaint,
zigzagging rooms.

Its world of noodles — rice, egg, chow mein, lo mein, cellophane,
vermicelli, udon and ramen — is more than just a tangled web
to weave. Unraveling each strand — adding meat, seafood,
veggies, broth and sauce — creates a multicultural dining
matrix of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian
and Italian. Yes, Italian. Spaghetti, says Mekpongsatorn, is
offered in memory of Marco Polo, the trader who brought pasta
from Asia to Italy.

Beyond the top-billed noodles, rice, succulent tropical salads,
hand rolls, satays and wings are also available. Solid meat
entrees include two bone-in pork chops, well-flavored by an
Asian marinade of honey and garlic. I found steakhouse
quality here for only $7.95. And it included a mound of rice,
cucumbers and a side of vivid red fish sauce, sweetened
with sugar and made tangy with chili paste.Other notables
include a Thai top sirloin beef salad, impudently spiced with
chili flakes, lime juice and onions and a classic array of
Vietnamese pho (pronounced “fuh”) bowls.

Off-the-menu requests are dandier, and always available.
Asking for something with crispy noodles, I was served a lacy
filigree of brittle chow mein noodles — about two inches deep,
three inches wide, stretching more than a foot along a pretty
platter. It was slathered with chunks of chicken and mixed
veggies. Pressed into puddles of rich gravy, softened and
plumped, the noodles were absolutely delicious ($7.95).

I also recommend ordering a bowl of regular udon tom yum.
This is shrimp, squid, mussels, crab meat, fish cake and fish
balls netted in thick bands of udon wheat noodles, lapped in
a spicy hot bath of lemon grass, lime juice and chili ($7.25).

As for the above-mentioned fiscal therapy, nothing on the
menu exceeds $7.95. And there’s a slush fund of smoothies,
coolers and twists. Is there another comfortable, sit-down
restaurant in town where you can have a decent dinner for
$7.95, topped with an ice-blended peach-and-mango summer
cooler for dessert?

For live entertainment, it’s diverting to watch patrons struggling
to eat noodles. Ordinarily I shake my head reproachfully at
the sight of bad manners, like when a person in a buffet
line eats standing up like a horse. But I never tsk-tsk poor
souls chasing noodles. The best you can do is tuck a napkin
into your shirt or blouse to catch the strays. But in noodling,
this is perfectly good form.

I can still picture one troubled man in a suit. With pals looking
on intently, he kept trying that outward, upward, parallel-to-the-
mouth Emily Post movement, but the noodles resisted and kept
dangling from his chopsticks like streamers after a party.
Fetchingly, he finally gave in to bobbing and slurping. Like good
friends do in reacting to another’s mistake, his colleagues
winced before smiling.

He could have asked for a fork and braced the curly web on
the side of the bowl. But I wouldn’t, mainly because in Asia
long noodles symbolize long life.

I also observed a 3-year-old girl with a better idea. She picked
out one strand from a cold bowl of soupless noodles and ran it
back and forth across her mouth like dental floss before letting
it dangle from her lips. When her mother called them wibble
wabbles, I giggled.

That’s because it’s fun to eat noodles, except on an interview
or a first date.

Noodle World
24 W. Colorado Blvd., Old Pasadena
(626) 585-5885
www.noodleworld.com
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