Noodles delight offers good cooking
In the early 20th century, eating out in a Chinese restaurant in Chicago was a swanky experience. Eateries like the Mandarin Inn, Joy Yen Lo and Hoi Sai Gai were white-tablecloth palaces. According to the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, these and others had as much prestige as the city's most costly French and German restaurants. They often featured live music and dancing.
One of my earliest food memories is my first visit to a Chinese restaurant as a little girl in the early 1960s. The place, a posh spot in downtown Detroit called the Forbidden City, seemed vast, dripping with scarlet and gold ornaments.
My mother and grandmother, dressed to the nines as women did in those days for a day of shopping downtown, took me there for lunch. I wore a little suit of matching pants and top. But the place was so formal that the maitre d' nearly didn't let us in (I didn't meet their dress code, which barred females, no matter how small, in slacks).
Nowhere near as hoity-toity as that, Noodles Delight in Roselle offers good cooking in a bright, contemporary dining room that provides a restful atmosphere and amenities suitable for a date or a business dinner, with friendly, informed service and a broad range of good cooking.
Owners Hon and Sunnie Wong, natives of Hong Kong, opened Noodles Delight about a year ago, after selling out their interest in Fabulous Noodles in Lisle.
"My wife and I, our whole family, we love noodles," Hon Wong said.
The menu offers a long list of noodle dishes and all kinds of other options, ranging from old-fashioned egg foo yung and chop suey to more exotic mashed winter melon soup with seafood and beef brisket and tendon stew.
Mildly spiced Cantonese-style cooking, with its emphasis on letting the fresh ingredients shine, comprises most of the bill of fare, but a few dishes bear the red-pepper warning symbol, including a list of Szechwan-inspired items. Those who like things really hot, however, will probably want to order "extra spicy" or help themselves to the chili oil on the table.
Classic Chinese-American egg rolls are everything they should be: hot, crisp, ungreasy and packed with a nicely proportioned mix of vegetables and meat, served with pitchers of spicy mustard and sweet-and-sour sauce. (A vegetarian version is available, too.) Though they come two to an order, our group of three was able to order three pieces.
Other starters include shrimp toast, crab Rangoon and pot stickers, amply sized and full of well-seasoned meat, though a trifle doughy (I would prefer them cooked a little crisper).
Soups are a specialty, so put this place on your list for comfort in the coming cold season. The hot and sour soup stands with the best that I've tried, a balanced blend of black pepper and vinegar, chock-full of mushrooms, tofu, seaweed, chicken, bean sprouts and more.
As a nice option for a group, you can get hot and sour sizzling rice soup, with a crackly rice garnish added at tableside. The brimming bowlful is suggested for two, but provides enough for four appetizer portions.
Other soup openers include wonton, egg drop and chicken cream corn, available in small or large servings.
Elsewhere, the menu also offers family-sized, entree soups such as hot and sour soup with seafood, beef with cilantro and tofu with Chinese greens. Then there are 18 noodle soups, which can be dressed with your choice of thin egg noodles, linguini-like wheat noodles, or thin or broad rice noodles.
That list includes a house-special noodle soup with shrimp, chicken and beef; roasted duck noodle soup; Indonesian-style beef stew noodle soup; fish or beef balls noodle soup; and beef tripe noodle soup.
Noodle options go on to braised-noodle dishes, featuring medium-sized noodles in combinations such as braised noodles with ginger, green onions and oyster sauce and barbecued pork braised noodles; thick, chewy chow fun rice noodles, served with beef; traditional lo mein with shrimp, beef, chicken, etc.; and pan-fried noodles -- either thin Cantonese egg noodles or rice noodles -- tossed with ingredients such as fish fillets in black-pepper sauce, black beans with beef or chicken, or shredded pork with vegetables. Our order of the last came with a nice, flavorful blend of meat and veggies, but next time I would order the noodles "extra crisp."
Plenty of non-noodle choices fill out the rest of the menu, with common dishes such as Mongolian beef, moo shu pork and sweet-and-sour shrimp, as well as a list of chef's recommendations offering more interesting items: crispy-skin chicken, fried on the bone; stir-fried Manila clams with black-bean sauce and shreds of pork; and a lovely version of ginger beef, strips of beef that manage to be both tender and crunchy, glazed in a sweet and zingy ginger sauce.
On the list of Szechwan specialties, General Tso's chicken, that ubiquitous Chinese-American dish, fares less well -- its chicken pieces coated in too thick a batter, its glaze too sugary and not spicy enough. The Szechwan string beans, too, lie on the bland side, as well as a tad undercooked. So stick to the Cantonese and Mandarin side.
Desserts are limited to almond cookies and complimentary fortune cookies. A full bar caters to those who want something more potent than tea.
The kitchen closes at 9:15 p.m. weekdays and a half-hour later on weekends, so you can't quite "Make it a night at Noodles Delight" as the menu suggests, but you can certainly enjoy a good dinner in its sleek confines.
Noodles Delight
Cross Creek Commons, 853 E. Nerge Road, Roselle, (630) 307-1010, www.noodlesdelight.com
Cuisine: Chinese
Setting: Sleek, contemporary dining room in a shopping center at Nerge and Plum Grove roads
Price range: Appetizers $2.25 to $6.95; entrees $5 to $14.95
Hours: Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; dinner: 2:30 to 9:15 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 2:30 to 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 8:45 p.m. Sunday
Accepts: Major credit cards; reservations for five or more
Also: Full bar; free parking