She: Noodle House

I have to say, I'm addicted to vietnamese noodles and grilled meat. LOVE it. I never lived there, but I did live next door in Thailand, and depending on what vendors you ate at, there were some similarities--there's a thai version of pho soup and all that jazz. Anyways. When Mark and I moved to Sacramento, we were completely bummed by the lack of fab mexican or new american cuisine. Its what we lived on in Atlanta. (but we are still looking around here!) Instead, we found that while the Sacramento version of salsa leaves a bad (read watery) taste in our mouths, the noodles in this town rock.

Noodle House is one of my favorite places in town. Its a little joint in the strip mall over on Madison and Manzanita in Citrus Heights--behind the Starbucks, Lyons, etc. Its just "Noodle House." But it IS authentic, and the staff is super friendly. They do know me, and I always sit at "my" table (little embarassed at being such an obvious devotee), but even before they knew me, I was always greeted and seated sweetly by a soft spoken Vietnamese lady. And anyone who serves there is just as gracious, too. That goes a LONG way with me.

Anyways, I went there with my friend Erika, and we started off with fried wantons in ginger sauce. They use *real* wanton wrappers--meaning they are really thin and crispy. They use these on their imperial rolls (aka spring rolls), too. Any time I get a spring roll or wonton with a thick wrapper, I'm a) disappointed and b) suspicious that they actually bought them premade. Thats usually what I find in those situations.

While we were chomping on these badboys, we were also drinking the complimentary hot tea that comes with any meal there. We ended up ordering two different versions of the rice noodles--she got grilled beef and I got the chicken. I've had them all, and all of the meat there is moist. This meal comes in a bowl with a side of a cucumber/pickled carrot/lettuce salad that I just mix in with the noodles. The noodle bowl is too big for me to finish unless I'm really full, and if you just get the basic its under 6 bucks! The only thing is...if you go there often enough (as I obviously do) you reaaaally get to know the recycling elevator music they play, but with everything else they've got going, it doesn't phase me in the least.