|
Dine: First Bite
Pasta perfect
[Times photo: Kathleen Flynn]
Fresh flavors give the dishes at the Noodle Lounge extra punch. The seared salmon with soba features grilled fresh salmon brushed with ponzu, miso and sesame glaze served on soba noodles with green onions and shiitake mushrooms. |
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Restaurant Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 17, 2003
From the crisp, stylish environment to the fresh, flavorful bowls of noodles, B.T. Nguyen has created a comfort zone at the Noodle Lounge.
|
 |
Is there anything as simple and comforting as noodles? A peninsula full of Italians can't be wrong. A century of Campbell's Soup kids know it. But in the beginning, it was half of Asia that discovered that the lowly noodle in warm broth was the stuff of life.
We have learned their wisdom through a new variety of Asian food, more chow fun and Singapore noodle dishes on Chinese menus, a slowly growing offering of Japanese soba and udon, and an endless, inexpensive supply of beefy pho and refreshing bunh in Vietnamese restaurants.
Yet, there was still room for a place that recognized a bowl of noodles as a thing of beauty and gave it a home to match.
The Noodle Lounge is that place, and I should not suggest that it is a museum or a temple. It is only a lunch spot in a strip center on Tampa's unlovely Gandy Boulevard, but it is a place of serenity, nonetheless, a contemplative garden where you can be at one with your noodles.
The place -- and the noodles -- come from B.T. Nguyen, the Vietnamese restaurateur who has put more style in Asian dining in the Tampa Bay area than P.F. Chang's ever could, working with little budget beyond sweat equity and innate feng shui. She built Cafe B.T. with black and white and pastels; her next restaurant, the Yellow Door on S Howard Avenue, was made from the aforementioned portal and a Zen sense of texture and light.
The Noodle Lounge, formerly a Little Caesar's pizza restaurant next to Cafe B.T., is now an oasis of white, blond woods and pale hues of celery and melon. In this spare space, a bowl of limes on a narrow wood table is sublime, the photo gallery of black and white portraits of family and friends, all eating noodles, delightful.
The noodles range from rice vermicelli to soba. It's not the full gamut of Asian noodles, but a good start and enough to keep me busy. The best so far are fat wide rice noodles, served in a mild coconut curry with fresh peas and lemon grass. They are made in-house and consequently taste fresh and hearty.
The curry noodle and Nguyen's take on bunh, the familiar rice noodle salad, give extra energy to the expected array of fresh flavors: mint, ground peanuts, coriander, basil, cucumber and chiles. Those contrasts always thrill my bored Florida palate, and Nguyen invigorates them further by enhancing the grilled meats and fish.
Shrimp are bolstered with kaffir lime, chicken with gingery galanagal, beef with lemongrass or cognac, and salmon with ponzu and sesame. (Entree salads can be similarly garnished).
Trimmings such as green papaya salad seem to have more punch; maybe it's just an extra squeeze of lime. Ice creams are homemade. Mine proved it by needing more time in the freezer, but the ginger and cream were decidedly fresh. Noodle Lounge squeezes its own juice and limeade, too.
Although it's difficult to see how Nguyen can keep three independent spots going in these tough times, at her newest venture she seems to have all her personal hallmarks in place. Food is lively to the tongue and lush to the eye; service is swift, smart and as stylish as the owner. The decor shows energy and style that suggests she could take on Martha Stewart and Vern Yip at the same time.
Prices are on the high side, but in this case, the meals are solid lunches, not Asian tapas, so I find them justifiable. They won't fit the ordinary workday lunch budget of most of us, but this kind of effort and taste is not an everyday affair.
The surroundings are as restorative as the noodles.
Noodle Lounge
- 3324 West Gandy Blvd.
- Tampa
- (813) 835-1434 Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
- Prices: $6.95 to $11.95.
- Details: No smoking; outdoor seating.
Back to Weekend
© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
|
