Cheap Eats - Noodle Club delights with kooky yet typical Asian fare

Wedged into a row of shops in a Duluth strip mall, there’s little outside to indicate the Noodle Club’s quirky interior. Yards of gleaming Formica and tile combine with mod glass pendant lights and murals depicting dreamy Asian countryside scenes. They create a slightly odd, frothily fun atmosphere.

Lost in Transmigration: The very food offerings that appear so un-Asian are what make the Noodle Club so thoroughly Asian. Swiss-style pork chops, spaghetti and cream of chicken and ham soup might look like anomalies on a menu populated with more typical Asian offerings such as Ma Po Tofu and seafood noodle soup. Yet the entire restaurant — menu, decor, and even the courteous, zippy waitstaff — seems plucked whole from Singapore or Hong Kong. These cafes with similar international offerings are frequented by the 25-and-under crowd communing on group outings and first dates.

Spring into action: Noodle Club’s pork spring roll ($4) is actually a hybrid summer roll, with roast pork, filmy rice noodles, mint, basil icy shreds of lettuce and a core of fried spring roll wrapper that is swaddled in soft rice paper. Long, twisted Chinese donuts ($3), are a bit on the greasy side, and a wee bit stale, which is remedied by a dunk in the house-made cream of mushroom sauce that accompanies the Cornish hen.

Song for Hong Kong: I’d be willing to endure 5 p.m. traffic on Ga. 400 for another helping of that crispy Cornish hen ($9). Succulent, butter-fleshed and kissed with honey, dark soy and a sprinkling of five-spice, the hen recalls the famed fried pigeons of Hong Kong. Spaghetti with steamed broccoli, squash and a ramekin of cream of mushroom sauce on the side is goofy but bland fun, easily corrected with a pinch of salt. Beef satay noodle soup ($7) is exceptional, with gingery, garlicky slices of velvety beef in a rich, oniony broth.

Stew on this: More stew than curry, the beef stew curry ($7) is an exercise in the joys of braising. Chunks of beef tender enough to be eaten with a spoon are chock-a-block with carrots and onions in meaty gravy with just a hint of curry.

The desserts might seem strangest of all. Under the listing of the shaved ice dessert ($4), customers are prompted to pick three items, which turn out to include red beans, corn, cubes of grass jelly and lychees. The ingredients are hidden under a mound of tongue-abrading ice topped with condensed milk. One bite, and I’m transported far, far away from Duluth, to Singapore as a 10-year-old, at a table in a hawker center with my dad, who has just made it his mission to see that his favorite daughter learn a thing or two about enjoying food.