Brother's Noodles — Restaurant in Tucson

Possibly the worst restaurant experience ever. I was excited to try this place after it got a good write-up in the Tucson Weekly and had good reviews from people overall. We arrived this past Saturday at 6:30pm. It seemed a bit busy - it's a very small place, and there were 3 tables filled with people and several tables with dirty dishes on them that hadn't been cleaned yet. The woman at the counter was friendly enough but wasn't at all helpful when we asked for recommendations (I asked what was good on the "no meat" menu and she said "well, most people get the mixed vegetables, one time someone ordered the eggplant." So, she had no idea. Not helpful!).

We thought we'd be better off getting our order as takeout, since service appeared to take a long time considering none of the tables with people had been served any food yet. The atmosphere is also pretty terrible - very bright lighting and empty bright walls with just large menus facing the outside taped on them. (Doesn't really bother me, just didn't add anything to the experience).

There were three of us and we ordered three meals (soup, veg slices, noodles) and an order of dumplings to split. Ordered at 6:30. A couple came in and sat down about 10 minutes later. We waited, and we waited. Another woman came in and ordered food. We watched as tables slowly got there food, one plate at a time. The couple that came in after us was then served their entire meal, including an appetizer. Other people got served. The couple ate their food and left! On the way out, the man said, "You deserve a medal for your patience." It was about 7pm by now. We were still waiting for our order. The woman that walked in and ordered - a bigger order than ours - got her food within 15 minutes and walked out. We didn't get our first part of our order until 7:25! Nearly an hour from when we ordered. And then we kept waiting for the rest of the order. Our food was getting cold while our friend waited for his order, which arrived once every other table had eaten and left and there was NOBODY left in the restaurant. It was nearly 8pm. An hour and a half wait for takeout Chinese food. I couldn't believe it.

The woman and the front apologized a few times, but not very sincerely and didn't seem to actually be doing anything useful to move things along. Probably not her fault, but she could have at least offered us some water or drinks while we waited. We asked if it was something special we had ordered, but she didn't seem to know what was going on. When the remainder of the order was finally up, we thought we'd hear some kind of apology from the owner and a discounted or free meal. But, no. We asked the server if there was anything she could do, she said no but then got the owner. When we explained (very nicely and calmly) we'd been there since 6:30 and asked if there was anything they could do. The owner stared at us blankly then eventually said, "two free juice?" Really? Two free orders of juice is all you're offering us? (Remember, there were three of us and we'd been waiting patiently an hour and a half for our food). We walked out. Had already paid so took our food and left. The food? Mediocre at best. Good-sized portions, but the noodles had been sitting there so long that they were in clumps, stuck together. Even when put in the soup they stayed in clumps. Veg slices weren't anything to get too excited about. Dumplings were decent, but not worth the wait.

Terrible service and the longest I've ever waited for any meal....

I really wanted to like this place. It's close by, and I love noodles. Lo Mein is one of my favorites, but this wasn't like any I'd had before. The Lo Mein noodles were BRIGHT orange - I mean, carrot orange! I know there are specific types of noodles that are orange, but nothing was said on the menu about these being different, so it was a total surprise. That wasn't the bad part, though; they were totally bland and boring. There was just no flavor to whatever sauce they used. I had ordered the House Special Lo Mein, since that generally provides a nice variety. There were a few tasty shrimp, a little bit of plain chicken chicken breast - literally, plain, with no seasonings or marinade - and even less beef. The vegetables consisted of a small amount of green onion and a single stalk of green onion. I had to add shoyu and oyster sauce at home to give the dish any flavor at all. We got an order of Garlic Bok Choy, which would have been great had it had about one-quarter of the amount of chopped garlic, and if the garlic had been even minimally cooked. I'm not a wimp when it comes to garlic by any means, but this was so loaded with nearly raw garlic, I could barely taste the bok choy! I ended up chopping it up and using it to make a nice, garlicky chicken soup the next night. We also tried the chicken fried rice, which turned out to be boring and flavorless as well. Altogether, a very disappointing meal, nowhere near worth the price we paid. Chances are good that we won't...

We go regularly for their fresh dumplings. Don't go by their appearance, all of the dishes we have ordered were very flavorful. Best for take out as they only have about 7 tables. They always seem busy at dinnertime. Updated 3/31/18** Recently stopped by here for dinner to have my favorite dumplings. They were packed really tight and a little less flavor than normal I was wondering if they were made fresh or frozen. I'm not sure if they recently changed owners. My wife noticed even her Mongolian beef was 70% onions. Maybe it's a new chef but the dumplings were not up to their usual greatness. I hope it's just too momentary issue 8/25 question for dumplings again and beef and broccoli and everything was fresh and flavorful I'm glad we give it another try. The flavors of their dishes are really clean and you can taste the vegetables in the me sometimes Chinese restaurants here in town have a tendency to smother their dishes and sauce and you can't taste anything but the sauce. Definitely give them a shot. 1/30/19 ** Just wanted to update that their dumplings are back on point and we really enjoyed our lunch...