East One is a noodle bar, very much in the Wagamama style. One bowl dishes, seating at long wooden benches and so on. The menu leans more towards Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai rather than Japanese, but the styling is similar. I like these places, and am always hopeful that independent ones will come up trumps with better food than the chains.
Sadly East One wasn't that great. Vegetarian spring rolls were crisp and greaseless, but otherwise boring. Probably straight from the freezer catering pack, but certainly no better than that if they were made in house.
My Thai fried rice (chicken, onion, tomato, stir-fried with chilli paste, basil and fish sauce) was underseasoned in every way. Not enough chilli, basil or fish sauce. I asked for fish sauce and chillies so I could pep it up a bit, only for the waiter to explain that fish sauce wasn't used as a condiment as it was too salty. News to me. He brought me a tiny dish of chillies in vinegar instead.
AS had roast pork and duck on rice with greens. I tried the duck;- good flavour but a bit chewy. The sauce was too gloopy.
The chap, who to be fair was friendly, came back for another chat when we'd finished, and decided to explain the situation vis a vis appropriate use of fish sauce in more detail. I wouldn't have minded had I not known he was talking bollocks. Thais eat fish sauce laced with sliced chillies all the time. It's a condiment called nam pla prik (annoyingly I couldn't remember the name at the time).
Anyhow the food was ok, and was served quickly. Service was friendly but irritating. We paid around £23 in total, reasonable but not particularly cheap for this sort of thing.
5/10
13 The Plaza
West One
8 Fitzwilliam Street
Sheffield
S1 4JB
www.east1noodlebar.co.uk
Sadly East One wasn't that great. Vegetarian spring rolls were crisp and greaseless, but otherwise boring. Probably straight from the freezer catering pack, but certainly no better than that if they were made in house.
My Thai fried rice (chicken, onion, tomato, stir-fried with chilli paste, basil and fish sauce) was underseasoned in every way. Not enough chilli, basil or fish sauce. I asked for fish sauce and chillies so I could pep it up a bit, only for the waiter to explain that fish sauce wasn't used as a condiment as it was too salty. News to me. He brought me a tiny dish of chillies in vinegar instead.
AS had roast pork and duck on rice with greens. I tried the duck;- good flavour but a bit chewy. The sauce was too gloopy.
The chap, who to be fair was friendly, came back for another chat when we'd finished, and decided to explain the situation vis a vis appropriate use of fish sauce in more detail. I wouldn't have minded had I not known he was talking bollocks. Thais eat fish sauce laced with sliced chillies all the time. It's a condiment called nam pla prik (annoyingly I couldn't remember the name at the time).
Anyhow the food was ok, and was served quickly. Service was friendly but irritating. We paid around £23 in total, reasonable but not particularly cheap for this sort of thing.
5/10
13 The Plaza
West One
8 Fitzwilliam Street
Sheffield
S1 4JB
www.east1noodlebar.co.uk
I had a similarly bad experience at this restaurant recently. My friend ordered the fillet steak rice which was overcooked and had too much MSG in and we are not sure whether it was fillet or not...I had the Singapore noodles which was a bit tasteless. I've had this dish in many other restaurants and usually it is spicy and well seasoned.
ReplyDeleteAnon - thanks for commenting. There definitely should be a bit of spice to Singapore noodles, waste of time otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI've been to this place before and I can tell you that the spring rolls there are all made from scratch. They've opened a takeaway on Ecclesall Road and have had it there for years now and every time I've walked in they're always making their spring rolls, samosas etc from scratch. As for the Singapore noodles, I can't comment on that as I've never tried them.. in my opinion this is one of the best takeaways in Sheffield!
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