I have great love for Asheville’s The Noodle Shop.  It’s the most authentic chinese food in town, the price is right, I love the service, and you cannot beat the location.  But as of today, I have eaten everything good on their menu over 643 times.  However, there are a few dishes that easily surpass everything on their regular menu and are some of the best meals I have ever tasted in this town.  Which is why I’m asking you to join me in my campaign to get these few specials on the regular menu.  My current plan is every time one of these dishes is featured, I eat them on average about three or four times a week to reward the owners for serving them, and when they don’t feature these items, I punish the staff by my raging absence and by depriving them of as close to steady income as they’ve ever had from a customer.*   These items are:

Mongolian Beef: No, you have never had anything like this if you’ve eaten the bland, over fried salt-fest that is this dish at other Chinese restaurants.  At The Noodle Shop this dish is flavorful, sweet and tangy, with a dash of red pepper, and the beef is a marvelously thin cut, with onions both green and yellow.  I add shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots and I always order this with the bean thread noodle option.  OMG.  By the way, they have it right now.  So your good deed for today is to go there and order this dish in droves, and then they will put it on the regular menu, and I will give you a giant e-hug. 

 Sweet and Spicy Pork and Beef:  The Noodle Shop’s crown jewel, in my opinion.  Again, this goes shockingly well with the bean thread noodles, and while the sauce is similar to the Mongolian Beef sauce, I believe they add broccoli to this dish and their the addition of the pork, which is thinly sliced, sweet, tender, and has motivated me to give a standing ovation right there at the table on numerous occasions.  If you see this dish on special, I implore you to join me in harrassing the entire staff about their genius creation until it’s a member of their regular menu. 

 One could argue that I am so addicted to these special items only because the powers-that-be at the Noodle Shop dangle them before me like an unattainable pot of gold at the end of noodle rainbow, but I assure you, I will never tire of these two meals.  Ever. 

*This tactic worked in the case of their version of Pad Thai (the only time I’ll ever order this dish anywhere-it’s awesome) which used to be only a specials item and is now a part of their regular menu.