Noodles are a food group in my family. With two small anklebiters under four to please, and with two parents working full-time, the most successful meals tend to be speedy and simple — and pasta plates meet those criteria.
Although Liberty Noodle doesn’t cater specifically to families (in fact, its location in the heart of East Liberty Village makes it more a destination for weekday workers), the restaurant’s design formula and noodle-focused menu have a lot going for them in terms of surviving a lunch out with the kids.
An access elevator and wide aisles between light wooden tables and benches mean that strollers maneuver easily, communal dining tables afford wiggle room for wee ones, and wooden high chairs restrain our baby broods when the grub arrives. The kitchen is open to substitutions, although sometimes at a cost.
The feeling of openness created by 14-foot ceilings (even if we are a half storey below ground), cool slate tile floors, large windows and clutter-free decor counteracts cabin-fever preschoolers, and loud-ish music on the speakers has the potential to calm or craze the kids, depending on disposition.
The modern Japanese menu starts off with seven starters and four salads. Salted edamame keep fingers busy while waiting for main courses (just $3), and staff-recommended crispy shrimp and calamari, well-timed and crispy-battered in panko crusting, make for a good first introduction to seafood — and the crunch doesn’t melt to mush minutes later ($7). An accompanying wasabi-coriander dipping sauce reads more interestingly than it tastes. Better, perhaps, to squirt these babies with the juicy, fresh wedge of lemon.
Six noodle plates, seven noodle bowls and five rice plates serve as main dishes, with assemblies ranging from lemon-ginger salmon noodle plate to vegetable miso ramen noodle bowl to Japanese beef curry rice plate.
Strangely, the kitchen serves up only one kind of noodle (ramen), which may not bode well for particular pasta pickers or those with wheat allergies. Thankfully, the ramen in two dishes sampled (one bowl and one plate) are well timed, even though they’re not homemade and make for messy munching.
Ginger chicken ramen noodle bowl ($9) brings ramen noodles, crunchy carrots, soft bok choy and slices of tender, tangy chicken breast swimming in a ginger-focused broth. Separately, each ingredient has something to offer, adding either texture or colour, but overall the dish is plain, and would have benefited from stronger seasoning in the broth. Still, the warm and comforting soup serves as a good choice for a cold day. Oversized traditional wooden spoons make awkward utensils for little hands.
Chili and ginger beef noodle plate ($10) caters to adventurous, spice-seduced palates. Bite-sized morsels of ginger-marinated sirloin melt in the mouth, jostling for space with diced red pepper, shavings of purple onion and chopped scallions among knotted ramen. I’m a sucker for spice, but a cook’s heavy hand with the chili flakes almost spoils it for me. Not recommended for young’uns.
An interesting selection of sodas (kumquat, vanilla bean, lemongrass, rhubarb) trumps humdrum Coke and Sprite.
Young, friendly servers work the room with confidence, bringing out the plates and bowls at rapid speed.
416-588-4100
171 East Liberty Street
