Noodles slide into the spotlight for this entry: Customers searching for slurp-worthy strands should slip into the freshly launched GO Noodle House, one of Jaya One's most distinctive restaurants.
Bottles of Chinese cooking wine line the entrance of GO Noodle House; no mere ornaments, these serve a practical purpose, which we'll come to in a few seconds.
Customers have lots of space for customisation here: First, select your type of noodles (Yunnan-style mixian rice noodles or regular bee hoon), then your soup (superior or spicy) & pile on the add-ons; we had 'song fish' belly, squid balls & fresh prawns. Each bowl of noodles with one type of topping starts from RM8.70; our hearty one with three types of relatively premium toppings cost a reasonable RM18.90. Other topping options include pork belly, beef slices, clams, scallops or bitter gourd.
Here's where the wine comes into play: This friendly, efficiently operated eatery offers three-year-aged & five-year-aged bottles for customers to splash a spoonful of wine into their soup _ it's a wonderful way to boost the flavour & fragrance of these meals.
Numerous items can be ordered separately from an a la carte selection, in big bowls of broth without noodles: We enjoyed the fleshy, fresh-tasting grouper head & belly (RM16 with many chunks of fish) ...
... & the fabulously meaty frog (RM19.90, sufficient for three to share), more pleasant-tasting than the norm.
For this soft-launch stage, customers can savour the wine on a complimentary basis; they'll eventually be sold at RM29.90 for each three-year-aged bottle & RM39.90 for the five-year-aged. Unfinished bottles can be kept at the restaurant for future visits.
Also on the menu: GO Noodles' pan mee should please; eight-kilogram batches are reputedly hand-made here every day.
Three types of pan mee (thick, thin or torn) in possible variations of superior soup, spicy soup, dark sauce or spicy dark sauce can be ordered, handsomely plated with condiments. RM8.90; also a pleasure.
Complimentary for a limited time: Sweet-savoury imported Taiwan pork sausages, & bakkwa-like 'gold coin' BBQ pork slices.
GO Noodle House serves no Western wine, but the corkage charge is only RM5 per person, so bring a bottle.
Need more noodles? Here's another newbie in another neighbourhood: Shabuton Tei in Kota Damansara's Sunway Giza.
Ramen is the highlight at Shabuton Tei, helmed by Osaka-born chef Naohiro Okubo; tonkotsu, shoyu & garlicky broths cost RM17.90 for a basic & up to RM23.90 for specials with cha-shu & egg. The outlet prides itself on carefully prepared components _ filtered water, imported wheat flour for the noodles & fatty pork ribs for the braised meat _ to produce harmonious wholes.
The noodles are a bit nondescript (though perfectly decent); the eggs are all right & the pork is worthwhile. Probably not the most memorable ramen around, but we still happily finished our bowl. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Many customers at Shabuton Tei also huddle around hot pots; no surprise since Shabuton also touts shabu-shabu-style buffets.
Collagen is extracted in-house (presumably from the pork bones) to help produce the broth. 'Get prettier by eating more?' Hmm.
The help-yourself spread looks solid for RM28.88 per person (lunch) & RM36.88 during dinnertime. This was the lunch selection.
Meat balls, crab sticks, bean curd, mushrooms & veggies _ more than enough for a hearty feast.
Noodles & eggs; maybe we should return sometime, since we lacked the stomach space for a buffet this time.
Dressings & condiments galore; Shabuton Tei looks set to turn into a sizeable success (as GO Noodle House deserves to be).
GO Noodle House
61-P1, The School, Jaya One, Jalan Universiti, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Above Cold Storage. Neighbours with Kechara Oasis. Tel: 03-7499-1126
Shabuton Tei
Sunway Giza, Kota Damansara, Selangor
Tel: 03-6150-5530
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