Noodles and Company Chapel Hill - Review of Noodles and Company Chapel Hill

Pros

• Noodles and Company offers relatively healthy fast food
• Noodles and Company has lots of vegetarian options
• Noodles and Company provides fast service
• Noodles and Company serves flavorful and artfully-presented fast food (even comes on a "real" plate)
• Noodles and Company has a convenient location with easy parking

Cons

• The portions at Noodles and Company are relatively small and mostly noodle -- much meat or vegetable
• The prices at Noodles and Company aren't that cheap ($5.95 for a small plate of noodles with meat)

Description

• Noodles and Company serves a variety of noodle dishes.
• Their menu is divided up into Asian, Mediterranean and American sections (each one has four dishes to choose from).
• Asian-style dishes include Indonesian Peanut sauté and Bangkok curry.
• Mediterranean dishes include several creamy pasta and tomato type entrees
• American dishes include plain buttered noodles and mushroom stroganoff.
• Noodles and Company currently has two locations in the Triangle:
• Chapel Hill at 214 W. Franklin St. and in Durham at 2608 Erwin Rd. (in the Duke Medical Pavilion)
• Noodles and Company is planning a third location in Raleigh's Cameron Village at 403 Daniels St.
• The Chapel Hill locations hours are Sun.-Wed. 11:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m., Th.-Sat. 11:00 a.m. 10:00 p.m.

Guide Review - Noodles and Company Chapel Hill - Review of Noodles and Company Chapel Hill

The Chapel Hill Noodles and Company is in the funky-looking stand-alone building on Franklin Street, which had been vacant for almost 10 years. The restaurant has the minimalist chic aesthetic that is common to several "upscale-style" fast food chains, including Chipotle Grill.

During my visit, at 9:30 on a Friday night, the service was courteous and fast, although there was a five-minute wait to place my order because the customer in front of me was confused by the menu and the cashier patiently took the time to explain it to her. However, once I placed my order for Japanese pan noodles with sautéed beef and pad Thai with tofu, the food was ready quickly (in a little over five minutes) and was brought to me at my table.

The food was artfully presented--the pad Thai had colorful sprigs of fresh cilantro on the side, and bright pieces of carrot mixed in with it--and tasted light and freshly-made. The portions were smaller than I expected them to be, and were about 85% noodle and 15% meat or vegetable. I was especially disappointed that the extra $2.00 I spent to add tofu to the pad Thai only bought me about eight teeny cubes of tofu. I had a similar reaction to the very tough and somewhat gristly beef that I bought to complement the Japanese pan noodles. However, the "yumminess" of the caramelized udon noodles in the dish almost made up for the "yuckiness" of the beef.

Still, I might just stick with the mac n' cheese next time!