*updated* Yoyogi Sushi - Kentland Gaithersburg MD

****** updated 12/14/2011 ***********
Just had a horrible lunch experience at Yoyogi sushi, now I don't know if I can recommend the place anymore (that's the nice way to say it, I would definitely NOT recommend this place for weekday lunch).  The three of us girls wanted to grab lunch together at Yoyogi on a Wednesday.  We figured we'd get there around 11:45am so we can get seats because the place gets busy.  We spent a good amount of money on lunch, about 30 dollars worth.  The food was served within 5 minutes, which was good.  But after we sat down for about 25 minutes, the waitress and the female manager kept coming to our table every 3 minutes to look for empty dishes to take away, etc.  We were very distracted because we were still eating and chatting away (you know how girls are).  But then after checking on us 3 times (about 2 or 3 minutes apart), the female manager came with the waitress again to ask if the 3 of us can fit into the small table (usually a two seater) because they're 'busy'.  We complied so another two plp could take the table, but even then, the waitress and the female manager wouldn't let up and kept checking our table and basically hinting for us to leave.  So my friend who has not finished her lunch at the time had to stuff the rest of the sushi and we quickly got out of there.  The manager did thank us when we left but the whole incident was just plain RUDE.  We sat down around 11:50am and we were basically rushed out of there at 12:20pm, I don't think we'd go back for lunch again!  ...  Oh and their seafood udon tasted terrible today, too salty as well.

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I had mixed feelings about Yoyogi Sushi for a while because our last visit was terrible.  The chicken teriyaki was not only not authentic, it tasted kind of bad.  We decided to give it another try for lunch, and it turned out to be much better experience.

menu

We learned our lesson and just ordered California rolls and udon this time.  Neither one of them failed and they were both really cheap for lunch, I think they were $5.99 each.

seafood udon - lunch special $5.99

California rolls - lunch special $5.99

The California rolls were impressive, lots of fresh crab meat and fresh roes.  Udon was a bit on the salty side but the noodles had the right degree of chewiness and shrimp tempura was good.

Overall, I would recommend Yoyogi sushi if you're looking for a cheap casual lunch.  If you're opting for more authentic Japanese cuisine, I still recommend Yuraku in Germantown.

FoodiePop's rating: 2.2/5, 3.2 minus 1 star based on new experience on 12/14/2011

Yoyogi Sushi
328 Main St
Gaithersburg, MD 20898

Bob's Noodle 66 台菜 - Rockville MD

This Bob's noodle review has been long over-due.  If anybody asks me about Taiwanese cuisine in the area, Bob's noodle is no doubt on the top of the list.  I've eaten there so many times, but never once did I bring my camera with me until this past weekend.

They have awesome weekday lunch special deals where you get three dishes and a soup for about 20 dollars.  The portion is enough to feed 3 people so it's a great bargain. Unfortunately, the deal is only Mon-Fri like any other establishment, so on a Saturday for lunch, we ordered individual dishes.

I order the pork chop over rice.  This is undeniably the best Taiwanese fried pork chop over rice in the area.  It's a great deal too, for $6.95 you get a huge plate with sour cabbage and minced pork over rice, veggies, one marinated egg (my favorite), and TWO big pieces of Taiwanese fried pork chops!  This is definitely the five star of the pork chop over rice in MD hands down!  The portion was large for me, so I actually made two meals out of this, hey, that's $3.50 for a meal, not bad :)

He ordered the combination ho fan noodles.  This was good as well, not overly greasy like most of the other Chinese restaurants.  The portion was descent as well, we finished all of it! *burp*.

I am really not doing real justice to Bob's noodle since we didn't order the Taiwanese dim sum on this visit.  They make awesome oyster pan cakes, stinky tofu, chicken egg roll, and so many other dishes.  When we visit the place for Taiwanese dim sum again, I will definitely append to this review!  I did order a soup and marinated bean curd for appetizer on this visit.  They were both good as well.

sour cabbage and pig stomach soup - yum!

marinated bean curd

Bob's noodle has always been the best of the best in Taiwanese cuisine in MD.  There are many items I have yet tried from their new menu though, I need to go back more often!  One word of caution before you head down there, the only thing I don't like about the place is they don't take credit cards.  Who doesn't accept credit cards in this day and age?  Anyway, make sure you bring plenty of cash for the goodies.  Oh, and they also serve bubble tea as well!

FoodiePop's rating: 4.5/5

Bob's Noodle 66
305 N Washington St
Rockville, MD 20850

Ruby Tuesday - Lakeforst Mall Gaithersburg

My sister and I were planning on getting some food at food court in Lakeforest mall, but since I wanted some chicken wings, we ended up at Ruby Tuesday instead.  It was a good choice!

Ruby Tuesday is a good choice for lunch because you can add $2.99 to almost any meal and get unlimited salad bar.  I have to add though, their salad bar selection dwindled since the last time I visited.  But for $2.99 additional, I guess I can't complain much.

$2.99 additional for salad

After we placed our orders, waiter delivered the complimentary herbal biscuits, these were a bit sweet but nice and warm.  We even requested a refill for the toddler to munch on!

complimentary herbal biscuits

I had my heart set on buffalo wings, so buffalo wings I ordered.  These were descent, nothing extraordinary but they were good nonetheless.  The kid really enjoyed the celery sticks, hehe, but that's another story ...

buffalo wings

Sister ordered Parmesan chicken pasta.  She said it was good, mostly white sauce (Alfredo?) but came with marinara sauce on the side for the chicken.  It was a big plate so she ended up taking most of it home.  She got grilled squash as side item, they were freshly grilled and seasoned just right.  I had a couple of these...

Parmesan chicken pasta

side item: grilled squash

I really enjoyed our lunch at Ruby Tuesday.  We had good service, descent food, and everybody went home with a full tummy without breaking the bank.  I'd definitely come back again for another meal!

FoodiePop's rating for lunch: 4/5

Ruby Tuesday
701 Russell Avenue
Gaithersburg, MD

Michael's Noodle Restaurant 小金華, Gaithersburg MD

Michael's noodles was our favorite spot for years.  They used to have the best beef noodle soup and Hainanese Chicken Rice in the area.  I'm not sure if they got a new chef or if they wanted new flavors, those two dishes are not what they used to be anymore.  With that said, we still visit the place sometimes since it's close to home.

interior of Michael's noodles

We ordered two appetizers.  Marinated bean curd (拌豆干) and spicy beef lungs & tripes (夫妻肺片).  The marinated bean curd used to be our favorite appetizer dish as well, but it hasn't tasted the same in the recent months.  The spicy beef lungs & tripes tasted pretty good, not real spicy but it had good flavors.

marinated bean curd

spicy beef lung & tripes

For the main entrees, I ordered the pig intestine rice noodle soup (I know, I know, a lot of animal organs for this meal...).  It was actually pretty good!  It tasted pretty authentic with finely chopped Chinese celery in the soup.  I finished the whole bowl minus all the pig intestine pieces because there were so many.

pig intestine rice noodle soup (大腸米粉)

He ordered the minced chicken with lettuce (洋蔥雞鬆).  The dish was descent, the chicken and onion were salty and a little sweet at the same time.  The most common variation of this dish is minced chicken and shrimp with lettuce (雞蝦鬆), that one is pretty good as well.

minced chicken with lettuce (洋蔥雞鬆)

The whole meal ended up around $30 dollars plus tip.  Not bad for what we've ordered.  I do wish they can bring the good flavors back in their signature dishes such as beef noodle soup and Hainese chicken over rice.  Hopefully their chef will see this post and fix the flavors! *wishful thinking*

FoodiePop's rating: 3.9/5

Michael's Noodle Restaurant
10038 Darnestown Rd
Rockville, MD 20850

Niwana Hana, Rockville MD

I've been to Niwana Hana many times in the past years, it is not the most authentic Japanese restaurant but the location is convenient.  It is situated right in the middle of Rockville.  On a sunny Friday, a girl friend and I decided to visit the place for its lunch menu.

The lunch menu was quite simple, you can pick sushi rolls, bento boxes, or entrees like udon noodle soup or soba noodles.  We both opted for the bento boxes because they look like the best deal for your money.

bento box: spider roll & shrimp tempura, $11.99














She picked the spider roll and shrimp tempura bento box.  Spider roll is fried soft shell crab in sushi roll, you usually can't get away with paying less than $8 for this.  So this was a very good deal!

bento box: California roll & shrimp tempura, $8.99














I picked a popular combination, California roll and shrimp tempura.  This was descent as well, not a lot of surprises but it was pretty cheap for the amount of food I got.  I especially love the broccoli and carrots, they put a little sesame oil and Japanese soy sauce to give it just the right amount of flavor.  The shrimp tempura only came with one shrimp, but I enjoyed the vegetable and crab stick tempura anyhow.

Overall, Niwana Hana is good for business casual lunch on weekdays.  As far as other menu items, they look somewhat pricey.  I would probably still opt for Yuraku since it is more authentic than Niwana Hana on regular menu items.

FoodiePop's rating for lunch: 3.2/5

Niwana Hana
887 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852

Ziki Japanese Steakhouse, Gaithersburg MD

We haven't visited a Japanese tappenyaki for a while.  Even though our favorite tappenyaki place is Benihana in Bethesda, we decided to opt for something closer this past weekend....so we ended up in Ziki Japanese steak house near Washintgonian center.

It was odd that we were the only tappenyaki customers during the entire lunch hour on a Saturday, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.  We were disappointed that they didn't have any specials for lunch, maybe that's why there were so few lunch customers?  He ordered the shrimp and steak tappenyaki combo and I ordered the chicken and steak combo.

Each entree came with salad and soup.  They were just okay, I was surprised that they didn't use traditional Japanese ginger dressing for the salad.  Indeed, they used ..thousand island dressing.  The soup was ordinary, maybe a little below average.

salad

mushroom soup

I also ordered a bowl of fried rice for additional $3 because I love tappenyaki fried rice.  This one was just below average, Benihana makes much better tappenyaki fried rice.

tappenyaki fried rice

Then the show started!  We weren't really interested in the cooking show since we've seen it many many times.  But we tried to act interested, ...most of the time.  The chef was very professional and entertaining, even though we weren't paying close attention to him.

chef putting on a show

cooking main entree *droool*

The main entree portions were big.  I love the amount of veggies they cook with your meats, plus he made these tappenyaki fried noodles with our meals.  The noodles were delicious!  The steak was cooked to the order and he also put in some garlic with it.  What's not to love?

ta-da!!  My steak & chicken

complimentary tappenyaki noodles, yummy!

In a quick summary, we enjoyed our tappenyaki meals at Ziki.  It was a bit pricey but the food portions were big.  As far as the the overall quality, I still favor Benihana in Bethesda, but Ziki is a good alternative that's right around the corner.

FoodiePop's rating on Japanese tappenyaki: 3.7/5

Ziki Japanese Restaurant
10009 Fields Road
Gaithersburg

Arirang, Rockville MD

We had lunch with a couple of friends this past Saturday and they mentioned Arirang.  Then I couldn't stop thinking about Korean food!  So after church on Sunday, we drove to Arirang on East Gude Drive.

The interior decor is clean and traditional.  The tables are set fairly apart that you don't feel overly crowded.  There's a bar area that faces directly to the door where you're greeted with smiling waitresses while they prepare the small complimentary dishes.

unique wallpaper in Korean language

pleasant interior

nice picture menu

I love their picture menus!  It made it that much easier to order (also that much more enticing to order everything....)  We ordered three entrees.  One for each of us and another bulgogi dish to share.  Bulgogi was the first to arrive on sizzling hot iron platter!  And with it, came the complimentary small Korean dishes (can be refilled on request)

Here are the small dishes, they were all pretty good!

steamed broccoli with sesame oil

Korean stable - Kim chi

marinated/cooked egg plants

spicy white turnip, yum!

bean sprouts appetizer

cooked Korean potato, loved this one!

bulgogi

The bulgogi entree was average, didn't blow me away but didn't disappoint either.  It was just a good beef bulgogi dish.  An especially 'safe' dish to order in Korean restaurants!

cod fish and vegetable stew

rice for cod fish stew

This was my entree, I ordered the cod fish with vegetable stew.  I loved it, the price was a bit steep but there were big chunks of cod fish and some shrimp and mussels, along with my favorite vegetables like onions and squash.  The vegetables really soaked up the spicy broth and tasted good.

spicy seafood noodles

This was his entree, spicy seafood noodles.  The noodles itself was nothing special, definitely not hand-made like Lotte food court seafood noodles.  The broth was above average spicy but they stacked up with a lot of seafood and goodies.  We ended up taking some of this home because we couldn't finish.  This was actually the cheapest dish out of the three pricing at around 10 dollars.

Overall, Arirang is an above the average Korean restaurant in the area.  Of course the price is also above average, we paid about $46 for 3 entrees for lunch, yikes!  But I'd definitely come back again, the atmosphere is nice and I love their fresh small dishes.

FoodiePop's rating: 4.2/5

 

Arirang

1326 E Gude Dr
Rockville, MD 20850