Asian Noodle House - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Great!
Highlight: Fun Veggie Shrimp (and other meat)
Lowlight: Veggie Steak was a little tough
Veggie Note: The menu here has a vegetarian section with chicken, steak and shrimp substitutes. There are also lots of tofu options throughout the menu, dishes with meat are clearly marked and a request from the chef to inform the server of any dietary needs is also stated right on the menu.

We made a special trip here after some discussion about the vegetarian meat substitutes in a Pennlive forum thread.

Asian Noodle House is a relatively new Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant (grand opening banner still up when we ate there). It is clean and bright, but the dining room is small (the service area/soda fountain is right in the middle of everything). It was not very crowded (empty when we arrived, two other tables filled while we were there). Their menu is printed on the wall, counter service style, but we were also handed menus ate our table and our order was taken from there. The service was quick and polite. The couple that came in right after us asked the server for a replacement for a dirty plate that was on their table and we clearly heard him behind the kitchen wall scolding whoever was responsible for dish washing. Then he very carefully examined the next plate before he brought it to their table. That was theme for the evening as well. Everything was very thorough.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complementary was served here

Appetizer:

• Steamed Edemame - very fresh, but not very salty. We added our own.

Entrees:

• Vegetarian General Tso's Chicken: Plenty of Chinese restaurants are offering a vegetarian version of General Tso's these days, but most just serve it with fried pieces of tofu. Here it was actually served with a vegetarian meat substitute (they did also offer it with tofu in the regular menu and with crispy fried tofu in the bean curd section of the menu - I'm not sure if there was actually a difference between those dishes or not). The sauce was delicious, just the right kind of sweet and spicy for me. The meat substitute reminded me a bit of the dehydrated steak pieces we used to buy at the food co-op in our old town, long ago before Morningstar Farms came out with their steak strips. When re-hydrated, they were pretty tasty (as long as you had a good sauce or marinade) but they were always a little bit tough. The same goes for this meat tonight. But that did not stop me from eating quite a bit of it, and then eating the rest for lunch later this week. It was tasty.
  
• Vegetarian Happy Family: A combination of all meats and vegetables or in this case all meat substitutes, which included beef, chicken and shrimp. The whole thing was in a brown sauce, to which we forgot to request a little added spice. There was a bowl of spicy garlic sauce on the table though, which helped to make it a little more our style. The beef pieces looked the same as (and were tough like) the meat in the general tso's, and the chicken pieces were a bit smaller (also much more tender than the steak) The real fun of this dish was the veggie shrimp. I have seen little tiny veggie shrimp before, but never anything like these. We took a picture with my phone, it doesn't do it great justice, but I have posted it here anyway. They were kind of the consistency of that imitation crabmeat (fish based) they often call "sea legs" in the grocery store. But the menu clearly stated that they were soy or vegetable based. Sometimes though, it's just more comforting to eat fake meat that isn't very meat-like. I thought these were spectacular, my partner didn't like them as much, but also never liked shrimp prior to becoming a vegetarian either.

Just a few other notes:

There were several other vegetarian dishes on the menu including an orange steak, shrimp and vegetables, and I think another chicken stir-fry kind of dish. In addition, there was a section of specialties on the menu where you choose what type of protein you want and then the type of dish, so you could pretty much put tofu into anything. These dishes included a variety of more popular Chinese dishes and some I did not recognize (maybe Vietnamese style). Also, there was also a section of Bean Curd dishes, and those that contained meat gave you clear warnings. There really were not any vegetarian options in the Vietnamese (noodle) section of the menu.

This was definitely a very casual restaurant and it attracted an interesting clientele (nothing bad, just reminiscent of some of the folks my parents used to play D&D with in the 80's). It would probably make a great spot for grabbing some take-out as well.

Final Thoughts: A vegetarian could come back here many times and never order the same thing twice. What fun! That's a rare find. I think I may have mentioned before, but the Asians have really exceeded America in producing meat substitutes. Big cities almost always have all-vegetarian Asian restaurants in them (Zen Garden in Pittsburgh, Kingdom of Vegetarians in Philly). Asian/International grocers are also great places to get veggie meat products to use at home. I make some mean Philly cheese steaks and chicken cheese steaks out of some yummy stuff I buy at an international grocery store (Assi) in Montgomeryville, PA. Check out any city's China Town section to find your own treasures. Just watch out for bins full of live animals as well (I once almost threw a piece of trash into what I thought was a trash can but ended up being a can full of live bullfrogs staring up at me - ack!)

The Coliseum (Brunch) - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Not So Fabulous
Highlight: Free Games
Lowlight: Dirty plates, sausage in the eggs
Veggie Note: This is not traditional brunch fare, even if the hostess tells you it is when you call to ask what food is served. There is a very limited selection for vegetarians here.

We went to Sunday Brunch here because we love brunch and because we saw online that it comes with $10 of free game play.

The Coliseum is a restaurant and entertainment complex with several bars, a bowling alley, arcade, etc… On Sunday morning the restaurant there serves brunch exclusively, no ordering from the menu is allowed. After your meal you are given a $10 game play card for the arcade and you can take your receipt to the Maggie Moos ice cream stand for a free treat as well. The restaurant is nice, decorated with race cars and other sports themed accessories. The brunch service area was pretty small on first glance and it proved to be a pretty limited selection once we walked up to serve ourselves. I picked up the top plate from the pile of plates at the end of the table. It was dirty so I set it down to take the next one, it was also dirty so I started to think maybe this was the plate return not the clean plates, but I was wrong. We notified the boy attending the buffet area and he handed us plates from behind the omelet bar. I noticed later that they came out and placed a new stack of plates on top of the ones that were already there. The two I set aside remained sitting next to that pile until we mentioned it to our server and then finally all of the plates disappeared.

We had the following:

• Omelet Bar – The scrambled eggs on the buffet were made with sausage and peppers mixed in, so we went to the omelet bar to get our eggs instead. We had our choice of onions, peppers, tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms in garlic (and various meats). The omelet maker, who was also the pasta bar attendant and the meat carver (actually he was the only person working out at the buffet area), was polite and did make an okay omelet. Our friend who joined us for breakfast ordered scrambled eggs from the omelet station and that request was accommodated.

• French Toast – pretty standard, nothing fancy here. There was a pitcher of syrup next to the buffet tray, but no butter was made available anywhere on the buffet. By the way, aside from Danish on another tray, this was the only bread available at this brunch. There were no choices of toast, English muffins, bagels, or other muffins here.

• Fresh Fruit – A tray of apples, pineapples, honeydew and cantaloupe was very fresh.

• Pasta Bar – A create-your-own pasta bar set-up included just one type of noodles, big fat macaroni noodles, two alfredo sauces and a red sauce, and a few toppings (some veggies and lots of meats). We asked if any other pasta was available and they were able to produce a single serving of some thick spaghetti noodles. It was okay.

Here’s What We Didn’t Have:

• There were no breakfast potatoes at all. There were some mashed potatoes next to the ribs and chicken in the lunch area of the buffet. They looked like they had some herbs, etc. mixed in, but we didn’t try them.
• There was no dessert on the buffet; I guess your free Maggie Moos treat was supposed to suffice. We did not have time to go there and get ours, so I don’t know exactly what you get for that, but it was certainly not going to be all you can eat like you usually find on a brunch buffet.
• Individual Yoplait yogurts were placed next to the fruit; however those do contain gelatin and are therefore not vegetarian.
• I mentioned before that there was no bread/toast on the buffet either.
• There was a big bowl of lettuce with sliced onions and tomatoes on top; we did not have any of this un-fancy salad.

Final Thoughts: If you are heading to The Coliseum to play arcade games and have an appetite, then perhaps you could consider this option. The meal was $13.95, so after our $10 in game play, we really only paid $3.95 each before tip. If you are looking for a nice place to have brunch and you don’t care about the arcade, I would highly recommend against this location. This is not a true Sunday Brunch and the vegetarian options are very minimal.

 

Sierra Madre Saloon - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Ho-hum
Highlight: Potato & Cheese Enchiladas
Lowlight: Friendly but Inattentive Service
Veggie Note: Limited Selection, but at least a few choices. Recommend asking to confirm ingredients

Stopped here for dinner on our way to Wegman's.

Sierra Madre Saloon is a cantina style Mexican restaurant with more bar than dining room. It was a little dark and smoky but had interesting atmosphere and what appeared to be a pretty nice outdoor dining patio, but it was not set-up or in use tonight, odd for a warm summer night.

There was no indication if we should seat ourselves or wait, so after minute or two of standing in the doorway, we found our own way to table and sat down. The menu had a variety of slightly more interesting than standard Mexican fare. There was no specific indication anywhere on the menu of which dishes may or may not be vegetarian, but they were pretty good about listing ingredients for most dishes. I would still be careful to ask if you're not certain, especially if it's going to ruin your night to have meat appear on a plate in front of you.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Homemade Chips and Salsa - the homemade chips were a nice treat, but definitely left us with divided opinions. They were thick and flaky, very unique, which my partner enjoyed about them. I was not impressed and thought they were heavy and became pasty in your mouth. I would have preferred them a bit thinner and crunchier. The salsa had signs of being homemade as well. We both agreed the tomatoes were likely canned and coincidentally were also a bit pasty.

Appetizer:

• Cheese Dip "Con Queso" - described as a blend of cheeses with a touch of salsa. When it arrived it we both gave it an inquisitive look followed by a pretty thorough examination. It was very dark in color and had a strange consistency. We were actually a bit nervous that there might be meat hiding in there. Luckily it was thin enough that after a deep probing we were convinced that it was safe after all. The dark color definitely came from a heavy dose of salsa, not a touch. We would have preferred it to be cheesier than it was, but we did finish it. The bonus was that it came with more traditional style tortilla chips, which I was craving after our less-than-normal starter chips.

Entrees:

• Chili Rellenos - The relleno was very tender and mild flavored, as it is described in the menu. The ranchero sauce topping, also very mild, was mostly unremarkable.
• Potato & Cheese Enchilada with Red Sauce - this was a nice treat as my partner loves potatoes. The red sauce was not as spicy as the menu let on. Luckily there were tasty pockets of spice hiding in the potatoes.
• Refried Beans and Spanish Rice - these side dishes were served with both of our entrees. They were both fine, nothing special, nothing bad about them. They made our single portion sized entrees plenty filling though. There was no specific indication that the refried beans were vegetarian (no lard), we would have liked to ask, but our waitress was mostly unavailable ot us, sitting at the bar and chatting instead of attending to us. They were pretty thin in consistency, so we took our chances and ate them, but I plan to give them a call at some point and I will report back here when I get an answer to that question.

Just a few other notes:

The beer selection was typical for the most part (Bud, etc...). You will find as our blog posts continue that we are avid micro-brew drinkers, as well as local wine aficionados. In general, we always give a ++ to any locally produced food or drink. None of that was apparent here.

Our server was mostly friendly, but as I mentioned before, she was pretty preoccupied with an ongoing conversation she was having with a co-worker at the bar. The bar-tender also had a pretty saucy mouth that we could hear pretty clearly from where we were sitting, not that we're perfect angels, but she was working, we weren't.

Final Thoughts: With so many Mexican restaurant choices in the area, especially right on the same road, I doubt we will make our way back to here again anytime soon.