837 SW Bay Blvd.
Newport, OR
541-574-6688
One promise I made to my wife when we decided to move west to Portland, Oregon was that we would make semi-annual trips to the coastal town of Newport. Set on the cliffs overlooking the ocean is the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a place where each room is decorated after a different author. Everyone from Hemingway to Woolf is represented and the library overlooking the rolling Pacific makes a perfect place to cozy up and enjoy a book. But, after discovering the Noodle Café on the historic bay front, I now have a second reason to return to Newport.
Though there are some subtle adjustments from moving east to west (the ocean was always east to me, but no more), nothing can be more frustrating than the little culinary differences. Pizzerias, a dime a dozen in my native Philadelphia, are "artisan" here and a whole pie can cost upwards to $30. A desire for lo mein is never entirely slaked since the Chinese restaurants here use vermicelli noodles rather than the thicker egg noodles. For a facsimile of East Coast lo mein, one has to order "yakisoba." And if you want to find steamed dumplings outside of dim sum, you're out of luck. The deep-fried potsticker is ubiquitous though. It is a minor gripe, but still takes a period of adjustment.
The Noodle Café is the best of both worlds. After moving from Atlanta, owners Lisa and Han Cheng serve the Chinese food I grew up with but with only a modicum of the grease that accompanies it. But to call the Noodle Café a Chinese restaurant is doing the place a great disservice; pan-Asian is the most fitting description. Though the menu is not overflowing with options, one will find Korean bul gogi, Thai curries, Vietnamese pho, Japanese yakiudon and Chinese stalwarts such as egg rolls.
We happened onto the restaurant for supper. The small dining room looks out onto the water and a few tables adorn a deck outside for warmer weather. We began the meal with pork gyoza. Completely homemade, the pork was delicately spiced and the shell a pliant joy. My wife immediately declared this is the best thing she's eaten since moving to Portland last August. Rather than the traditional soy or ginger sauce in which to dip the gyoza, Lisa Cheng created a delicious condiment that combined ginger, soy, cilantro, scallions, cayenne, soy sauce and sesame oil. It's going to be hard to go back to Kikkoman after that.
We both ordered entrees, unaware of the tremendous bowls about to come out. The Thai curry over udon noodles had the right balance of sweet and piquant. The fried tofu was neither too chewy nor too mushy and the noodles tasted much like those I used to eat when I lived in Japan. I decided to go for the Chinese-Korean Jung Bong noodle soup. Though I insisted I like my food extra spicy, the soup did not have enough kick for my liking. But Lisa brought some extra peppers to spice up this dark red concoction that featured delicious thick noodles, generous vegetables and tasty pieces of scallops, shrimp and calamari.
It must say a lot for a place if we decide to go back for lunch two days later. In fact, we ordered enough food to accompany our previous leftovers for another meal in Portland. We ordered an encore of the gyoza but this time also got shrimp gyoza and deep-fried crab and cream cheese rangoons. The shrimp gyoza, different than the pork with a rice wrapper, featured the deep taste of scallions and shrimp and the crab rangoons, utilizing local Dungeness crab, were delicious. I also ordered some chicken lo mein, which tasted much like the comfort food back home.
The one thing I have neglected to mention about this outstanding restaurant is they make their own noodles. Lisa confided in us that sometimes they wake up at 1 or 2 am to make them. Though a request to buy some noodles for the road was graciously turned down, the memories will have to tide us over until we return to Newport. We now have another reason to go back.
by David Harris