By Town Crier Lunch Bunch
A group of Town Crier staff restaurant reviewers, known as “The Lunch Bunch,” descends upon unsuspecting local lunchtime haunts once a month to critique their offerings in the Food & Wine section. The Lunch Bunch visited New Tung Kee Noodle House in Mountain View.
Restaurant: New Tung Kee Noodle House located at 520 Showers Drive, Mountain View.
Food: The Thai noodle house features more than 68 soup and noodle dishes including rice stick, noodle, vermicelli and vegetarian soup combinations. Portions come in two sizes, big and bigger. The menu includes an extensive list of ice tea and fruit juice combinations, as well.
A word to less adventurous diners: Be sure to check what is in the soup, and ask if you are unclear about anything. There are several unusual combinations.
Most of the ingredients in the Combination Rice Stick/Noodle Soup ($2.99) tasted very fresh, although the pork was very dry, and we were a little leery of the chicken skin hanging on the strips of meat. The broth was very thin, almost like water, with both thick and thin noodles, chicken, shrimp and pork.
The chow mein with vegetable and tofu was reasonably good. The dish came topped with fresh Chinese cabbage and broccoli and a big helping of tofu. The noodles were more oily than we prefer. The sauce was bland, but the array of bottled sauces on the table - plum sauce, black bean paste, red garlic paste and chili oil - was a big enough variety to spice it up to our liking.
The vermicelli soup with vegetable and tofu came with cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and rice noodles and a sprig of cilantro.
The Ice Milk Tea ($1.50) was mixed with ice, milk and sugar. It was very sweet, but still flavorful and refreshing.
Atmosphere: New Tung Kee has a loud, busy, fun lunch-time atmosphere, mostly packed with people taking a lunch break from work. The clanking dishes and shuffling waiters only seemed to add to our experience.
There’s nothing fancy about the place, just plastic booths and menus hanging on the walls. Tung Kee is a combination cafeteria-restaurant. Staff is on hand to seat and serve customers at numbered tables. Food comes via plastic trays. When you’re finished, you must proceed to the back of the restaurant to give your table number to the cashier, who will accept cash only - no credit cards.
Our group shared a long table separated by a small partition with two other customers.
Service: It’s loud, and a bit hectic, but our service was still relatively quick. The servers certainly aren’t there to make conversation, but they are efficient and friendly enough. Diners can get in and out in about a half hour.
Price: Tung Kee’s prices are perhaps the best thing this restaurant has going for it. The prices are extremely reasonable, especially considering that while the restaurant does have a cafeteria feel to it, it also has sit-down table service. The portions are large and include complimentary jasmine tea. A meal will set you back anywhere from $2.50 to $5.50.
Bottom line: We would definitely go back, if for no other reason than to get some variety from the typical downtown Los Altos food selection. Less than a block off El Camino Real and San Antonio Road, Tung Kee is still close enough to be convenient for lunch. But that’s not the only reason to go back. While we can’t say that the food is the best we’ve ever tasted, the meal, combined with the low prices and fun atmosphere, make New Tung Kee a good lunch-time destination.
- Town Crier Editorial Staff
