Happy Noodles

Ok I know you're wondering how I'm gonna justify Chinese food right after posting about Japanese ramen which I've hopefully justified the context to.  But have no fear, a short history lesson's here!

So a long time ago, the French people colonized Southeast Asia including Vietnam (which had many Chinese influences).  So as a result there's a lot of Vietnamese food and Chinese food in Paris.  Plus, Paris is very diverse.  End history lessons (thanks Professor Robinson).

So now I've justified Chinese food in France as well as Vietnamese food (because there will be a post on Pho later, don't hate) which brings us to Happy Nouilles.  It was actually recommended to us by our teaching assistants who have been living in France when we asked for Pho recommendations (have i lost you yet?  basically we got a Chinese recommendation for a Vietnamese request but all is well because the end [food] will justify the means).

So at Happy Nouilles (or literally Happy Noodles) the first sign of greatness you'll notice is someone hand making noodles in the front window.  The second sign is this:

It's not the normal recognizable sriacha (really spicy Asian hot sauce) bottle with the rooster on the front but I'm not complaining; sriacha is sriacha.

Now onto what we ordered.  By recommendation, I had an appetizer of Raviolis grillés, which is a fancy way of saying gyoza or dumplings. These dumplings (5 pieces for 4€50) had a very thick, chewy skin all around with a slight fry on the bottom. The insides were a wonderful blend of pork and...pork. A meat lovers dumpling dream that left out the usual cheap fillers of tofu and noodles.

As for the actual noodle dish, I got the regular dish with ground pork but substituted the noodles for the extra thick noodles (filament du blu  not sure on the spelling here).  The soup was a very warming blend of spicy and pork base and the ground pork and the bok choy added some nice variety as toppings.  But the best part of the dish was the substituted thick noodles.  These were hand made and crudely hand cut that almost just looked like pieces of dough floating in your soup.  Reminded me of one of my favorite home cooked Korean dishes, suh-jae-bee.

Blame it on an Asian bias but Happy Nouilles definitely served one of the more stomach satisfying dishes in Paris so far.  An all around plus from the noodles, soup, and gyoza appetizer make Happy Nouilles a happy winner in this blog.

Happy Nouilles

View Larger Map
95 Rue Beaubourg, 75003 Paris, France
Metro: Arts et Metiers