YYTime — Restaurant in Cleveland

New and improved Dagu Rice Noodle, with friends. The original restaurant menu has combined menus with an even more expanded bubble milk tea selection, buns and dumplings, and street food options in a newly renovated setting. There's a few parking spaces out front, as well as a parking lot behind the store that is attached to the posterior entrance.

The new waiting room and dining area are modern industrial, and while not necessarily completely imported from China like Lao Sze Chuan, definitely exude Chinese influence and taste. The high ceilings and center column with teapots make for a tasteful entryway for people waiting, which filled up to capacity around noon on a Saturday. We went early and got a seat right away, but there's a tablet to put your name down if the dining room is full. The tables are mostly built for parties of 4, with a few larger booths along the walls. One design flaw we did find was the table layout in the center - our table was awkwardly small, with arms of the seats literally rubbing against each other so that the seat had to be pushed out all the way to extract myself from the table. Perhaps opting for different seats in these tables would fix this.

Service was prompt and busy, even as the restaurant quickly filled during the first weekend shift since opening. We were offered either hot or cold water as soon as we were seated. Multiple waiters came by to check on us with iPads where they input our orders, and intermittently throughout our meal. There's quite a variety of food to choose from with the expanded menu, but we were a little disappointed that the buns and dumplings weren't being made when we went. Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed our food, especially the Grilled Scallops w/ Vermicelli, and Barbeque Pork Belly. The Taro Milk Tea was a little disappointing and artificial tasting, but the Strawberry Pomelo drink was refreshing. A note for spice lovers - we chose medium spicy and still found everything pretty mild, and would probably go with even more spice for more heat.

There are separate male and female bathrooms. The women's was spotless, with nice tiling and a smart mirror that changes lighting settings in case you... want to take a bathroom selfie?

The prices are a little on the higher end compared to other casual Chinese restaurants, but I'll certainly be back to try the many other...

My husband and I arrived at 5:45 pm on a Friday and I had to check in on an iPad to be put on a waitlist. We waited about 10 minutes, and the waiting space is rather small. When we got seated the waiting area was already quite congested. The whole restaurant is cozy and definitely chic.

We were greeted quickly and asked if we knew what we wanted immediately. It takes a while for them to make their bubble tea because it's all fresh so I suggest you have an idea on what you want to drink. Bonus thing I noticed throughout the night, you can order or ask about anything with any server on the floor.

We ordered Avocado Pomelo meet Mango with crystal pearl (g31), Sugar Cane Green Tea with original milk foam (t15), then Fresh Honeydew Melon Mojito (t7); the mojito was so refreshing and it was our favourite drink of the evening. I highly recommend it :)

For food and appetizer, we ordered the spring rolls (e1), the brown sugar sticky rice (e4), chicken extreme bbq in medium, sour spicy crossing the bridge soup w/ beef (b5), and kimchi crossing the bridge soup w/ beef (b6). The soup came out quick and piping hot. and it was good, but it wasn't great. The rice noodle is quite bland so it didn't add any extra robust flavouring to the soup. Again, it was good but there was no "wow" factor for my husband and me. I think it would've been better if there was an egg noodle alternative. The veggie spring rolls (not pictured) arrived when we were already halfway done our soup. I would compare this to a generic veggie spring roll you can order at any other Chinese resto. The chicken was alright but the medium topping was a dry rub not a sauce. The brown sugar sticky rice (not pictured) was hot and delicious; however, I would say it is more a dessert than an appetizer.

Overall, a solid 4. If we were to come back, we would definitely try the other options of fresh bubble tea but we'd skip out on the soup options since all are rice noodle based. We would try other appetizers and the rice dishes instead.

This will be...

Used to be good but not as good today.

Disappointed, because of the following reason:

When entering, no one is at the reception desk. Everyone looks busy but no one care about the new customers? Stood there for 10 min, couple waiters just walked by and no one told us what’s going on , how long do we need to wait, etc.

2.finally someone took us to the table, a gentleman gave us the menu and say our waiter will be at our table, however no one come and we waited for another 10 min and we have to wave to someone ourselves so we could get our order started.

3’The soup noodle has poor portions for the price. Also not satisfy with the flavor of soup.

When serving a large dish, the waiter asked us to make space for him so he can serve the dish , but we thought that suppose to be his job? We are paying tips? I understand we can do him this favor however what’s the meaning of paying tips if the customers need to do such a thing?

5’the pearl in the bubble , overcooked and they stuck together.

6.they have the steam bun on the menu but when we asked they said it’s not serving yet will come in a later time of year..

7.the cold noodle side dish has no salt and only have chill oil. No flavor! This is so different from the same dish I had before this restaurants reopening.

8.the crispy whole chicken is very good, to be honest the only good thing of the whole order. however it’s super hot and the chicken pieces are large.

Also it does not look like whole chicken, it’s basically 4 chicken large legs or thigh. The plastic gloves are served, but I don’t get it, how do you expect the customers to break such a hot thing?

ice water, no straw….

10’ serving time of the side dish is long, we almost finish the noodle and then finally comes the snacks… but they should be ready before the entree?

Personal thoughts ....