I would never have thought to go to this place if it wasn’t for my mom. She has become a ‘patron’ of the nearby establishment known as “Starlight Casino”. Shang Noodle House 尚麵館 is a very convenient location for the casino-goers because it’s a 2-minute walk from the casino’s front doors. Parking was simple, just parking underground in the casino. It is much better than fighting for parking spots in Richmond Chinatown, downtown and the malls during the weekend.
A shot of the interior from where we sat:
It was pretty quiet on the day we went. I enjoy the LCD TVs mounted above the bar seats but too bad there was no sound.
We’ve been here a couple of times before and they never had a ‘value combo’ before. I thought it was because of their vicinity to the casino but then again, a recession does wonders to pricing.
Here’s the normal menu:
then we spotted the great value combo mini-stansion!
Due to us being price-sensitive individuals, we went with Combos B and D.
We didn’t have to wait too long for the food to arrive:
Combo B!
Both combos come with dumplings sitting in spice oil. However, the star of the show was the Honey-flavored BBQ Pork! The meat was quite tender and didn’t require me to wrestle with tendons in my mouth. The noodle itself was green. The texture was alright, but the flavor was slightly lacking. The soup base was also a bit bland than the usual. It was definitely a let down but the BBQ Pork made up for it!
Combo D:
Combo D was a so-so for Wendy. We were satisfied with the dumpling and the Pork in her soup here, however, the overall experience for her was quite mediocre to say the least. The soup, again, tasted rather bland and nothing really stood about the main features of the combo.
But what saved the day was…*drum roll please* the Passionfruit Juice!
Wendy said it tasted more like guava than passionfruit, but we didn’t care too much because it was refreshing as it was tasty! It was just sweet enough to bring a smile to the face and didn’t seem to have that ‘medicinal’ taste that many “fruit-based” beverage may incur. The passionfruit drink was definitely a wonderful surprise.
This was probably our 4th or 5th time here. Unfortunately, we had to blog the one time where our experience was not up to par compared to our previous experiences. The soup noodles was below average, but the experience was somewhat saved by the tenderness of the pork meat and the unforgettable passionfruit (guava?) juice. We’ll definitely give it another try when we go to Walmart (it’s basically next door) and hopefully return with a better experience.
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Confusing. It’s a noodle house, but they serve mostly ramen.
Are they Japanese or Chinese?
Side note, the Kirin there is really pretty inside. 😀
Ha actually I had trouble deciding which category to place them too. Ultimately I chose Chinese just ‘cuz they’re Chinese run and I see their food as regional-inspired Chinese noodle.
That Kirin IS pretty~ And it’s much easier to get a seat there than in Richmond~