Yu Noodles — Restaurant in Fairfax

There are several Yu Noodles in the DC Metro Area, and I went to the one near my home in Fairfax (twice now in Fairfax, and one time at their original place in Rockville). As is usually my style, I try to go at least 2-3 times before putting up a Google Guide Review. One time visit review does not really do justice and fairness to local businesses. There are many reasons that your experience each time you visit can vary; and I have seen so many people write detrimental reviews of places they happen to just pass by and eat one time. Always give businesses the benefit of the doubt.

My Fairfax location visit was pretty surprising to say the least (notwithstanding that I have already been to their Rockville location once), but my surprise was because I have not really found great Chinese restaurants (I like traditional food, not bastardized-americanized food to cater to local Americans who've never even been outside of this country) -- so when I want Chinese food, I want real Chinese food. Yu Noodles is not real Old World Chinese food in a sense, BUT -- it is quintessentially, Chongqing Street Food which, if you know what that means -- you will have to go to city where the owners/chefs went to train to make these delicious and "on-fire" (some of them are hot! Which is what I like. I have fond memories of HongKong street food, or Taipei street food, Or Busan street food, or Shibuya street food -- what they all have in common even though they are different cultures, are the authenticity of their food rooted in each of their cultures.

Back to the menu items: Yes, I highly recommend this place, but I have since found out that the taste and offerings differ from each location. I am aiming to try the Herndon location and the McLean location to prove this (or not). And there seems to be two or three different websites for each location, with different photos of menu items for each location, and some of the photos on the location are not actually offered on that location. So, my take is do not trust the website photos. Just go to the location and enjoy whatever is on that location's menu. For my part, I prefer the taste of the Rockville location, but I like the ambience and customer service of Fairfax (not that the customer service in Rockville is bad, just different if you know what I mean).

NOTE: the people cooking in the back is really important. And that...

In mid February of this year (2024) I took the family to eat at Yu Noodle, Fairfax. It was on a Saturday early afternoon and when we arrived, it was very busy with a short wait for a table. This was the first good sign. The second good sign was that the waitstaff and host staff were Asian and there were a good percentage of Asians eating, including families with children. As Chinese and Filipino immigrants, we have seen that this often signals a restaurant that has both authenticity and value.

The resturant is clean, simply laid out, and decorated with an informative mural on the long wall. The noise level was moderate and lively, just as appropriate for a bustling, humble noodle house. Tables were clean and set up well with an assortment of sauces including soy and crushed red pepper.

Service was acceptably attentive given that the restaurant was completely full and buzzing with activity and eating from corner to corner. We received our menus and placed our orders in short order. Today we ordered the sticky rice shumai, chicken and shrimp soup dumplings, intestine noodles soup, chicken leg noodle soup, and noodle in scallion oil with chicken.

It's not necessary to go into deep detail on each dish when the overall summary should serve.

The entire meal, and every dish was delicious and satisfying. The quantities were just right. Plenty enough but not too much. Lots of meat in all dishes. The flavors were excellent. The soups were savory, not too salty, and not too spicy, and all had richness and depth with endless complexity. The noodles were done exactly right, just about al dente to properly show off their elasticity and quality. The textures were also exactly right. Just oily enough, just thick enough, just enough flavor density. At some restaurants, the soup is just "there" and not worth a sip. At Yu Noodle, the soups and broths beg to be drunk and savored.

There is no doubt that we'll return or that we'd recommend Yu to our friends. The one special reason why we'll eat here again is that their food reminded me of the food we used to eat at the old restaurants in New York City when we first came to this country over 50 years ago. Those shops are long gone now, but as long as Yu in Fairfax is in business, we'll always have a way to go back in time and enjoy the foods that welcomed us to America and that reminded us of grandma's cooking...

UPDATE 2: Yu has unfortunately gone downhill. We recently ordered take out and what we received was disappointing. The sweet and sour noodles historically can with glass potato noodles - this dish always does everywhere. They must be trying to save cost since what we got was soggy fall apart white noodles. The minced pork/egg over rice dish was tiny like it was off a kids menu. We requested chopsticks and received none.

UPDATE: We've tried a few other items on the menu and have visited a few more times. Still good, but would not recommend the pork noodle soup. The pork is deep fried and had zero flavor except the oil flavor. The pan fried pork buns are also just ok. The breading is much thicker than it should be and the bottoms of the buns are not as "pan fried" as they should be. Sticking to the spicy items on the menu is a safer bet.

This spot opened up a couple of months ago, the same owner as Yu's in Rockville. Very excited to see a more legitimate Chinese restaurant pop up in Fairfax. The closest place to get some decent non-American-take out Chinese food is Farenheit in McLean. We tried a couple noodle soups, the pickled cucumber, and the soup dumplings. The soup dumplings sound like they may not be available every day? Our server said "we have soup dumplings today", and the dumplings are not listed on the menu. the dumplings were pretty good, good bag of soup and flavor, though the dumpling skin was a bit odd - very sticky. The cucumber dish was good but could have used more salt or vinegar. The chongqing noodle soup and sichuan beef noodle soup were both very good. Noodles tasted hand made with the chewy texture, generous amount of meat topping and broth was savory. Only complaint would be the quantity - one bowl would definitely not be enough for a hungry person. Either way, we will...