Albert T.
Yelp
We dropped by Not Just Noodle for a weekend lunch after some friends recommended this place for hand pulled noodles. It was a pretty snowy day, so there weren't too many people eating in, yet they seemed to have a healthy take out business given that the chef was working constantly during the time we were there. We got one dish each:
Signature Beef Hand Made Pull Noodle ($13.99) - As soon as I heard the squeak of a noodle making machine cranking, I knew something was suspicious. The kitchen is in open view, so I walked up and saw the chef feeding the dough through a machine, then hand stacking the sheets, and finally through another machine to cut the dough. Hand pulled? More like machine pressed and cut but I guess they get away with it because the machine is hand cranked. It's easy to tell after you start eating that these are not hand pulled. Firstly, each noodle strand is completely uniform. Secondly, the texture isn't as bouncy as a hand pulled noodle since the gluten strands aren't congruent, although I suppose the gluten content of the flour could affect things as well. They give quite a bit of noodle, possibly too much to be honest. Since there is such a large amount and they are cut quite thin, it results in large clumps while you eat. For the rest of the dish - the broth is pretty light with light salty/savory notes. The beef is marinated in a Chinese braising spice mixture and is braised until quite tender. Not Just Noodle gives a good amount of meat. On the side, there is some sliced daikon and a couple of pieces of bok choy. The bok choy has a very raw biting taste. Given the taste and very crunchy texture, I assume they don't blanch it and instead just dump raw bok choy into the bowl and hope that the broth is hot enough to cook it through. Unfortunately it doesn't cook and is quite unpleasant to eat.
Shredded Pork Green Pepper over Hand Made Noodles ($13.99) - This dish is served piping hot and the aroma coming off the bowl is exquisite and mouthwatering. This dish is essentially red and green bell peppers cut lengthwise, sauteed with onions and garlic and marinated julienned pork. The pork is deliciously tender and very lean with no fat or sinew. The bell pepper unfortunately is not cooked evenly, with some pieces almost being mushy, and some pieces crunchy and barely cooked. This is served over the same machine cut noodles as other dishes. There's still a bit of saucy broth at the bottom of the bowl, so it's not completely dry. Tastewise the dish is very good overall. The pepper flavor really comes through and they also add a bit of sichaun peppercorn for that mala mouth numbing feel.
There is an option to get the knife cut noodles (the chef uses a modified vegetable peeler to slice the dough block into noodles right into a boiling pot of water), but it's a $2 up charge. I was actually wondering why there was a up charge when I first looked at the menu, because hand pulling should technically be more labor intensive than knife cut but I figured that out pretty quickly!
Note: Not Just Noodle doesn't serve water in cups; they only have bottled water. Not sure if they charge for it since we brought our own water this time.
There are a handful of other places in Metro Detroit that actually serve legitimate hand pulled noodles so I would tend to those places rather than Not Just Noodle. The food isn't bad, it's just that there are better places nearby. I personally can't see a reason to eat at Not Just Noodle again but you can give it a try and see for yourself.