Fresh Mart took over the old Whole Foods space on University Avenue. Besides its own hot meals, the international grocery has a Sichuan restaurant inside called Hotco Noodles.
As the name implies, Hotco’s specialty is its homemade noodles. The beef stir-fried noodles ($13.95) are delicious and surprisingly not greasy. The beef strips were tender and had a slight curry taste, probably five spice. I was allowed to hold the vegetables, which are comprised of cabbage, snow peas and onions, as I always feel they bring the wrong texture to a stir-fried noodle plate.
The dumplings also are homemade. I don’t usually see chicken dumplings ($7.99 for eight) on menus, so I had to try them. The chicken was ground and had a strong ginger flavor. I liked that the dumplings weren’t too doughy. As a whole, they were very tasty, and they went well with the accompanying hot chili oil, which, too, was homemade.
There are quite a few tofu dishes on the menu, including the mapo tofu and cold shredded tofu. I got the General Tso’s tofu ($12.95), as I wanted to see how this dish that’s traditionally made with chicken would taste with tofu. The familiar flavor was there, and the dish included the requisite broccoli. However, most of the pieces of tofu were overcooked and thus tough to chew. Sort of surprising was that this dish doesn’t come with rice.
One other dish I tried was the spicy octopus with fried rice ($14.99). I mistakenly thought the octopus was going to be in a spicy sauce; instead, it was chopped up and added, along with some chili flakes, to fried rice. As a result, the octopus was bland as it normally is, though the fried rice, which included onions, carrots and peas, was excellent. The dish was not super spicy, but the heat does build up after a while.
Hotco Noodles is open for dinner (carryout) every day and lunch (carryout) Tuesday through Sunday. Note, the owner told me that she is considering moving her restaurant to the east side.
