The Alley Noodle Bar — Restaurant in McKinney

The vibe and aesthetic are on point. The prices reflect the upscale intentions, the food is good but slightly misses the mark in a few places - especially for the cost.

The PHO the Love of God had all the ingredients we normally prefer so that’s what was ordered. The noodles were the L or XL size pho noodles. Multiple areas of them were clumped (stuck)together, but they were cooked properly otherwise. Many restaurants use M size, not sure it matters. What does matter is that the broth was lacking some of the spice notes you normally find in a good broth. You do get a nice setup of Thai Basil, jalapeños, and fresh bean sprouts. The “upscale” nature of the restaurant means you have to ask for sriracha and hoisin to dip your meat in. It’s not on the table. And the classy dishwasher safe chopsticks aren’t nearly as useful in pho as the cheap single use ones that actually have texture.

The Saigon spring rolls were good as was the peanut sauce - but at $7.99 it’s way too expensive for such a small portion. Maybe 3 (small ish) rolls would have made it feel ok. Most of the places in the area charge 4.99 or less for much larger portions of the same quality.

The oodles of noodles was also good. The iRoll that comes chopped up inside might be one of the best egg rolls we’ve had in a long time. They probably could get more caramelization on the grilled pork, but it was tender for sure.

Finally, the popcorn chicken bites were also good. Lightly breaded, comes out hot. And based on all the kids in the restaurant - they’re a hit from ages 3 to 15 :-)

The names of the items on the menu are definitely pretty funny - I’ll...

The last time I had been to this restaurant was two years ago and I thought it was great. Today has been an awful experience. We ordered the spring rolls, popcorn chicken, The Wok with pork chops and extra shaken beef, and Garlic Noodles sub protein for shaken beef. As far as how the food tasted it was mostly okay but I was disappointed with how our proteins came out. The popcorn chicken was not crispy and very dry, the pork chops were also dry, and the shaken beef was not as flavorful as before. The worst part was the service. We ordered the Garlic Noodles but were given the Oodles n Noodles. We let the server(there was only one) know that we had a wrong order and instead of replacing it we just had a side of garlic noodles. He did let us keep the Oodles n Noodles but our party would've much rather had our wrong order taken away and had a fresh full plate of the Garlic Noodles dish rather than just a side. Beyond that the pricing is already pretty steep for the food and we noticed the substitution charge was a dollar more than stated on the menu. Granted it's only a dollar but by the end of our meal it only further worsened our experience. Overall I would not come back because of the mediocre food, sketchy pricing, and...

New experience. I am glad I chose to try it. I tried the pho me up, I roll, and garlic and egg fried rice. I initially wanted to try something to make me feel better while not feeling my best. The pho did the trick. The pho: it had different cuts of beef which all seemed overwhelming after a while. I did not like the meatball but the others were ok. The broth flavor was ok but elevated once I added the sauce and lime. I think it needed more sauce and more lime to take it over. All the veggies were good and crisp, the noodles are flat and a bit wide. I do plan to try more options. The roll: I was expecting these to be really crispy and flavorful. The roll was not that crispy. The flavor was good and the roll was well stuffed and not to the point of being too big. The sauce made of ginger and garlic was underwhelming. The garlic and egg fried rice: This was the star of the show. The flavors were on point. It came with an over medium it. Mixing that in with the rice made the rice oowie gooie good. Loved this. I plan to try more items like this. Overall solid and tasty. I recommend and...