Bubble tea and the bird at Joy Yee's Noodle Kitchen
On Tuesday, I had dinner with my friends Melvin and Mike at Joy Yee’s Noodle Kitchen in Evanston, IL. Normally I’m not a fan of places like this because I am suspicious of Pan-Asian cuisine in general, and Joy Yee's mammoth menu has dishes from every corner of the continent. I'm sure there are instances when Pan-Asian can be done well, but my feeling is that most of these establishments tend towards the “Do many things, and do them all poorly” standard of restaurant cooking. They usually feature gloppy pad thai, mediocre maki, and chewy orange beef, not to mention the ubiquitous greasy potsticker plate.
But I’ve had pretty good luck at Joy Yee’s in the past. It has a few features that I especially love:
1) Plastic food models in the window
2) Pictures of food on the menu
3) A giant selection of bubble teas served in similarly giant glasses
Aside from these bells and whistles, the actual food is good enough for my purposes while eating out in Evanston, which has a surprising dearth of tasty options. I’m quite happy with their mapo tofu and bibim bop, less so with their weak and watery tempura udon soup.
We all ordered the aforementioned massive bubble teas (some more bubbly than others) and a plate of (greasy) Korean spicy potstickers. I can’t recall them being spicy in the least, but I was distracted by our conversation and by the commotion occurring at a neighboring table when the busboy dropped a large glass of ice water into a customer’s lap. Zowie!
Enormous bubble teas; Melvin is being contacted by the mother ship.
Greasy potstickers.
I had the bibim bop. It was fine, but lacked a broad selection of vegetables. Melvin requested the kimchi and beef stone bowl (another form of bibim bop, I guess?) and Mike got sesame chicken.
Bibim bop.
Beef and kimchi bowl with bunny ears.
Sesame chicken.
Dining out with Mike is a mild challenge in itself, because he is a Picky Eater. He is also a Pathologically Repetitive Eater. As long as I have known him, he has made the same dinner every single night: a grilled chicken breast that has been marinated in either Italian dressing or teriyaki, and a salad. I’ll never forget the look of sheer disgust on his face as he gamely tasted the seitan fajitas at Blind Faith Café, a lovely vegetarian place that I had suggested. It wasn’t his fault. Our waitress had reassured Mike that she’d never met anybody that didn’t enjoy them. She sure has now.
Midway through our meal, Mike and Melvin ditched me at the table to go smoke cigarettes outside. I consider this the height of gaucheness (Ed. note: I didn’t think gaucheness was an actual word, but it is. How thrilling!). Responding in kind to their social slight, I subtly - and, I must say, elegantly - gave them the finger through the window as they giggled at me from the street.
The evening had definitely devolved by that point. But perhaps that’s another nice thing about Joy Yee’s. You can give your friends the bird, and none of the other diners will notice or care because they’re too busy trying to suck down approximately two liters of mango-lychee-kiwi bubble tea, or blot up the pool of ice water that has collected in their laps.
But I’ve had pretty good luck at Joy Yee’s in the past. It has a few features that I especially love:
1) Plastic food models in the window
2) Pictures of food on the menu
3) A giant selection of bubble teas served in similarly giant glasses
Aside from these bells and whistles, the actual food is good enough for my purposes while eating out in Evanston, which has a surprising dearth of tasty options. I’m quite happy with their mapo tofu and bibim bop, less so with their weak and watery tempura udon soup.
We all ordered the aforementioned massive bubble teas (some more bubbly than others) and a plate of (greasy) Korean spicy potstickers. I can’t recall them being spicy in the least, but I was distracted by our conversation and by the commotion occurring at a neighboring table when the busboy dropped a large glass of ice water into a customer’s lap. Zowie!
I had the bibim bop. It was fine, but lacked a broad selection of vegetables. Melvin requested the kimchi and beef stone bowl (another form of bibim bop, I guess?) and Mike got sesame chicken.
Dining out with Mike is a mild challenge in itself, because he is a Picky Eater. He is also a Pathologically Repetitive Eater. As long as I have known him, he has made the same dinner every single night: a grilled chicken breast that has been marinated in either Italian dressing or teriyaki, and a salad. I’ll never forget the look of sheer disgust on his face as he gamely tasted the seitan fajitas at Blind Faith Café, a lovely vegetarian place that I had suggested. It wasn’t his fault. Our waitress had reassured Mike that she’d never met anybody that didn’t enjoy them. She sure has now.
Midway through our meal, Mike and Melvin ditched me at the table to go smoke cigarettes outside. I consider this the height of gaucheness (Ed. note: I didn’t think gaucheness was an actual word, but it is. How thrilling!). Responding in kind to their social slight, I subtly - and, I must say, elegantly - gave them the finger through the window as they giggled at me from the street.
The evening had definitely devolved by that point. But perhaps that’s another nice thing about Joy Yee’s. You can give your friends the bird, and none of the other diners will notice or care because they’re too busy trying to suck down approximately two liters of mango-lychee-kiwi bubble tea, or blot up the pool of ice water that has collected in their laps.
posted by cindym at 7:56 AM
4 Comments:
This is highly entertaining, Cindy! Here is my version of our Joy-Yee-ful experience, with which I was utterly enchanted.
Here, also, an entry I made a while back which contains a short bit about the Blind Faith saitan fajita platter.
Let us play together again soon!
You know, your post reminded me that Mike loves those vegan cookies from Blind Faith (the molasses ones). They are damn good. Perhaps that is why I wrongly thought he might enjoy an even more hardcore veggie dish such as the Satanic fajitas. ah well.
yes, we had a great time. but nobody should drink that much bubble tea. ever.
Wow. That Mike sounds like a total moron. I bet that his idea of a gourmet dinner is a brand-new George Foreman grill. LOL. He is rather cute though, I must admit. ; )
Yes, "Stacy", Mike is impaired in the food department. But he makes up for it in the Joyce, Shakespeare and mythology departments. If you're looking for a little helping of Plumtree's Potted Meat, Mike's your man!
Luv, Cindy
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