Super Bowl - Rockville, MD

Last Sunday, a few friends suggested we try a new Asian noodle joint that just opened up earlier this month. Super Bowl is located in the Ritchie Center shopping plaza on Rockville Pike, only a few shops down from one of my favorite bubble tea and Taiwanese fried chicken eateries, Bubble Express. Whenever there's a new Asian joint in town, my heart skips a beat and my knees tremble a little bit. This feeling increases exponentially when that restaurant is in Rockville because I know the competition is fierce, and the authenticity is generally a cut above the rest of Maryland. And on top of that, for me there's nothing out there that tops a simple bowl of delicious noodle soup as comfort food. Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, 'cuz I'm eating e'rething out here.

I helped myself to the Beef Noodle Soup, which is actually prepared in the traditional Taiwanese style. Beef Noodle Soup (紅燒牛肉麵) is actually a staple of Taiwanese cuisine and I guess it could be equated to how the Vietnamese enjoy their pho. My mother and my aunt make some ridiculous Beef Noodle Soup so I am quite particular about this dish. I'm pretty much a BNS expert (self-proclaimed). Also I just made up that acronym. For what it's worth, this did not really stack up to my homegrown expectations. While it was still very hearty (as it should be), I felt the flavor of the broth was kind of bland. I needed to add a self-destructive amount of chili sauce to make the broth taste like anything. The meat itself was pretty solid though. The meat is slow roasted so it is very tender and easily tears away in your mouth. The noodles were thick and perfectly chewy (or QQ as the Chinese say) like I likes it though. No complaints there.

Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Super Bowl my first time around I'm definitely going to give it another shot. They have a few very traditional Asian/Chinese dishes that I cannot find elsewhere and that I need to taste before I give my final verdict. Just wait 'til I scrounge together a few bucks to go again... (don't hold your breath).