Vol. 3, No. 11, November 2006
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Noodle-Bar Heaven
The Asian specialty is one of the hottest styles for new restaurants in town.
There has been a lot of recent attention regarding the addition of so many new steakhouses in town. But one thing many people may not know is that there are as many noodle bars—if not more—being added to Atlantic City casinos.
In the last year, four noodle bars were either added or massively renovated to accommodate the increasingly important Asian gaming market. And there is at least one more planned to open in the next year.
Harrah’s properties in Atlantic City have made huge investments in the past year to please existing Asian players while luring new ones.
“It’s extremely important to have a noodle bar… one of the most important components in the market depending on your particular property’s marketing strategy,” said Michael Bowman, vice president of Harrah’s Atlantic City food and beverage operations.
“If you have a property where there is a heavy Asian gaming customer base, then you have to have one. And it has to be efficient, refreshing and exciting. The commitment needs to be tremendous.”
Although Harrah’s Atlantic City does not have a noodle bar, Showboat remodeled its Royal Noodle House when $3.7 million was spent to construct its new Asian pit, the Fortune Abounds Pavillion.
Harrah’s also invested $15 million to build the most elaborate Asian pit and noodle bar in the city at Caesars. Its noodle bar/Asian restaurant, Kwi, is far from your average noodle bar in décor and cuisine, and is more like a full-serve restaurant.
“Caesars recognizes the importance of Asian gaming,” said Will Lee, director of food and beverage at Caesars. “One look at Kwi and the Asian pit, and you realize how serious we are about Asian clientele.”
Plus, Harrah’s isn’t done yet. The corporation also plans to invest significant money to bring a new Asian pit and noodle bar to Bally’s. The scope of the project is similar to Caesars and is currently in the design process.
“It will be as large as Caesars while also offering a few special hooks to surprise people,” Bowman says. “Harrah’s is taking huge steps in the Asian gaming market. We take it very seriously. It is a strategic commitment for all or our markets, not just AC. We believe in it and want to be the best at it.”
Ray Bertschy, director of food and beverage for Trump Taj Mahal, said his casino’s brand-new noodle bar, The Rim, has been extremely popular since it opened this summer.
“It’s essential that every casino has one if they want Asian play,” Bertschy said. “The food is inexpensive and prepared quickly, and we have a lot of late-night diners.”
Bertschy says timing is very important for Asian players. “They want to eat and get right back on the floor,” he said. “Our turnover time is 18 minutes from the time they walk in until the time they walk out. That’s the experience Asian players expect from a good noodle bar.”
Frank Freedman, vice president of hotel operations for Trump Plaza, says noodle bars are not only important, they are trendy.
“It is an essential component of Asian marketing,” said Freedman, who helped lure the China Café to his casino. “If you want significant Asian play, you need to be able to meet their needs. Even though we do not run our noodle bar, we ensured quality from the get-go. We went over everything, shared recipes and made sure our customers would not only be happy, but be ecstatic.
“The trend is that we are seeing more non-Asian customers eating there. The allure of the quick meal at affordable prices is part of it, but the acceptance of Asian cuisine to the American palate over the past decade has been significant. Part of that is that Americans are growing more health-conscious, and a big bowl of herb broth with fresh vegetables and noodles is not only healthy, it’s delicious.”
Asian Spice at Resorts
Athough Resorts does not have a casino-floor noodle bar, its Asian restaurant, Asian Spice, serves dual functions as a gourmet Asian restaurant and noodle bar.
Located on the dining level next to Capriccio, the 24-seat Asian Spice offers something the others in town do not—an ocean view. The stunning Asian Spice restaurant’s entrance immediately takes you to the noodle bar area, where an open kitchen features oversized leather chairs. Other tables line the windows overlooking the Boardwalk and ocean. Another tall, long table is located adjacent to the noodle bar inside the main restaurant, and is used when the noodle bar is extremely busy.
The relatively large menu features standard noodle-bar cuisine, but chef Sammy Wu’s menu goes the extra mile with heartier fare including barbecued duck and spare ribs (that fall off the bone). To please those with a more Americanized palate Asian Spice offers one of the best General Tso’s chicken in town, as well as chicken with broccoli and pepper steak.
China Café at Trump Plaza
Located away from the casino’s gaming pit and above the Boardwalk entrance, the China Café is a noodle and sushi bar/restaurant that boats a very large menu that will please all Asian palates as well as Americans’, too.
The relatively new restaurant seats approximately 100 people, including a 12-seat noodle and sushi bar.
“It is an extremely popular destination,” Freedman said. “The noodle bar is outstanding and offers very authentic Asian cuisine.”
Favorites like braised oxtail soup and Kim Chi are extremely popular, but the China Café also sells an enormous amount of sushi, Dungeness crabs and fresh fish, including some that are available in a tank from which customers can choose while the fish are still swimming.
The contemporary room also features Americanized Asian food including sweet-and-sour chicken, beef with snow peas, shrimp with cashews and General Tso’s chicken.
Empress Gem Noodle Bar at Hilton
One of the better noodle bars in the city, the Hilton’s Empress Gem is part of the new Asian gaming room, Treasure Palace, that opened late last year.
The trend with recent noodle bars is to offer expanded menu items. So, in addition to the traditional noodle and soup dishes including shrimp wontons and congee, the Empress Gem offers some light entrees, including popular items from its Empress Garden menu like Peking duck and soy chicken.
The beautifully decorated room, with a red color scheme and dark woods, is nestled inside Treasure Palace and features 15 seats at the noodle bar facing an open kitchen, plus another five tables with seating for an additional 20 people.
“It has been wonderfully successful,” said Keith Kozenskie, Hilton’s director of food and beverage. “It has been very well-received, and the players like it because the food is really well-prepared and served quickly. The fact that it’s right in the Asian pit is extremely convenient.”
Fulu Noodle Bar at Claridge
"Fulu” translates to mean fortune and success, and the small Claridge noodle bar offers patrons a mix of classic soups with a choice of egg, udon or rice noodles to fill your bowl.
Noodles and Zen Sum at Bally’s
This very small noodle bar offers Pacific Rim cuisine right on the Atlantic, but its days are probably numbered now that Bally’s has a bigger and more enticing room planned.
The open kitchen allows patrons to watch the chefs prepare a variety of traditional noodle dishes and dumplings. But good luck getting a seat. Since there is only seating for 12, Noodles and Zen Sum seems like it’s always packed.
The Noodle Bar at Tropicana
The Tropicana’s 15-seat noodle bar is clearly an amenity for its Asian player… so much so that cash customers are not accepted.
The stylish noodle bar is made of black marble with an open kitchen and red-and-tan color scheme. The menu, like the bar, is also small and includes beef and chicken congee, wontons, fish ball soup, spice beef stewed soup, Korean Kim Chee and other traditional soups.
Noodles of the World at Borgata
When the Borgata named its noodle bar Noodles of the World, a.k.a. N.O.W., it wasn’t kidding. Offering delicious selections from the Far East including Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other Asian ethnicities, N.O.W. offers a fun, casual vibe with food that’s tough to beat. Along with Caesars’ Kwi, N.O.W. ranks at the top of the Atlantic City noodle bar food chain. Located right on the casino floor next to Gypsy Bar, the room doesn’t stray far from the classy, modern style that the rest of the casino floor boasts, but there are some nice little touches, including an open kitchen, hardwood floors and encased stones under the glass tabletops.
There’s a good chance you’ll find as many Americans as you will Asians in this noodle bar. When you are greeted by the multi-lingual staff—which can speak English as well as a variety of Asian dialects—the atmosphere is set, and is reinforced when you realize there are buckets on the tables filled with American, Japanese and Chinese beers: This is going to be a fun meal.
The 36-seat restaurant boasts a large menu that is separated into three sections: broth noodles, small plates and wok specials. On the noodle side, the Vietnamese rare beef and Hong Kong shrimp wontons are big hits. From the small plates, the grilled chicken satay with peanut dipping sauce is a very unique dish for a noodle bar and needs to be sampled with the sliced, tender BBQ pork, which is a nice variation from spare ribs that are normally found nearly everywhere else.
For heartier appetites, check out the Pad Thai, crispy General Tso’s chicken, X.O. shrimp fried rice or beef Chow Fun, udon noodles stir fried with shrimp, chicken roast pork, vegetables and soy.
The Rim Noodle Bar at Trump Taj Mahal
The newest noodle bar in town is The Rim at the Taj Mahal. But unlike most of the new noodle bars in town, the Taj decided to keep things small and simple.
At just 29 seats, the noodle bar is located right across from the Taj’s new Asian pit and next to the new bar Ego. Because of the demand, the Taj was considering adding another table to expand seating in the near future.
The small menu features three appetizers and seven noodle dishes, along with some congee entrees and three roasted meats: pork, Kal beef and duck.
“We are also waiting for our Mongolian grill to come in,” said Bertschy, who said The Rim will then add other items including Asian dumplings and stir fry. “Even though it’s a small menu, we do touch on Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian dishes. So far, it’s been great. We probably could have made it bigger; it’s that popular.”
Royal Noodle House at Showboat
One of the more authentic noodle bars in town, the Royal Noodle Bar is a little hard to find. Located directly behind the newly constructed and impressive Asian pit at Showboat, the Royal Noodle House is clearly there for its Asian clientele.
If you decide to give it a try and you only speak English, be prepared to get exactly what’s on the menu, as the Asian staff mostly does not speak English. The small noodle bar features a bar area with 10 seats plus tables to accommodate another 28 guests.
Simply decorated and designed to get players fed quickly, the noodle bar mostly attracts Asian customers. It is one of the only noodle bars in the city to offer dim-sum, while also featuring Korean spare ribs and Vietnamese and Chinese dishes.
“Our menu appeals to a variety of nationalities,” Bowman said. “But like Italian food, you can’t please everyone. We kept the Showboat menu relatively simple because what we found is if you complicate menus and overdo it, you can be in trouble.”
Bowman said the Royal Noodle House is packed on weekends.
“We completely renovated the noodle bar when we built this new Asian pit recently, and the players are really responding,” he said. “It has been a grand slam.”
Kwi Restaurant and Noodle Bar at Caesars
Kwi is, hands-down, the crown jewel of Asian noodle bars in Atlantic City. As its name implies, Kwi is much more than a noodle bar, as it serves as an upscale Asian restaurant, too.
Caesars spent $15 million on this joint restaurant-Asian pit project, and every penny can be seen in the intricate details. Located adjacent to the Palace East Asian pit on the casino floor, the classic-yet-contemporary restaurant makes you feel like you are in the Far East with its lattice work, ancient motifs and stained glass columns. A good example of what you can expect here is a stunning mural made of 150,000 chopsticks that took the artist four months on an 18-hour-a-day work schedule to create. With rich woods and marble columns, Kwi is magnificent.
The restaurant also paid a great deal of attention to Asian superstitions, including the use of Asian artifacts, iconography, Patina bronze, wood carvings and stone. Guests even receive complimentary pomegranate juice with gold specks for luck.
The 67-seat restaurant features 18 seats around an open kitchen as well as a variety of tables for private or large-part dining. It is also the only noodle bar that is open 24 hours a day on weekends.
With the largest menu of any Asian restaurant in town, there are plenty of choices.
“If you’re looking to get in and out, we can have noodles made to order and in front of you in five minutes,” Lee said. “But this is also a place that you can come to and relax, take your time and have a gourmet experience. We wanted to make this a place that anyone who appreciates Asian cuisine can come to and enjoy.”
That’s why the menu features Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Mandarin dishes as well as a few for those used to Americanized Asian food.
Kwi offers a great selection of traditional and modern Asian cuisines with popular dishes like the chef’s special Rocket Roll (crispy fried scallion and bacon wrapped shrimp). Traditional guests will enjoy the braised oxtail soup and the Mandarin beef stew noodle soup or congee with chicken or seafood. But there’s something for everyone, including the Imperial shrimp (deep fried prawns in a creamy citrus sauce with honey roasted walnuts), lobster fried rice or the trendy Pad Thai. And unlike most noodle bars, Kwi even features dessert.
“We were just in Las Vegas, and we went to a number of noodle bars, and we didn’t see anything that compares to this,” said Stephen Prakash, Caesars’ vice president of food and beverage. “This is a special place.”
