Folks who like to slurp their way through these chilly fall days will rejoice in the warm comforts of two new noodle shops off the Red Line: the Noodle Lab in Kendall Square and Xi’an Cool Noodles in Porter Square. Both are no-nonsense, laser-focused eateries that are light on your wallet and hearty in your belly.
The Noodle Lab, an expansion of the Boston Noodle Lab that opened in Boston Public Market in 2015, is a clean, spacious cafe perfect for a working lunch, dinner, or a study and nosh. You could think of it as the Soup Shack with a sit-down-and-hang-out vibe. The Lab specializes in classic Japanese shoyu, tori paitan, shio and curry broths. The rich and savory chicken-based tori paitan comes in miso, creamy and spicy variations. The shoyu (soy-infused), shio (salty umami) and curry are also chicken-based, making the Noodle Lab one of the few ramen shops in the area, alongside old friend Sapporo Ramen at CanalSide, to lean primarily on chicken stock; pork is the more common base. After you select a broth, you build your own bowl with either ramen or rice noodles and add in your choice of protein (roasted chicken, katsu chicken, fried tofu, soy-braised pork belly, or miso ground pork) and veggies (corn, sprouts, Asian greens, and pickled shiitake). There’s also the option to add a custard-like onsen egg.
Building your own steaming bowl is fun, but I prefer the rotating specials: preset bowls that you can further customize. The wonton noodle soup, a clean peppery slurp, comes with rice noodles and a light yet rich white pepper broth. The brothy bowl comes with bok choy and Asian greens and is a hearty eat, given the generous portion of savory pork wontons. If you want everything, go for the Laksa while it’s on the specials slate: rice noodles, lightly fried tofu, lemongrass, roast chicken, and fish cakes all in a rich, coconut cream curry broth — add in sweet corn, sprouts, and an onsen egg to round out the flavor of your all-in-one slurpable. The curry packs the piquant yin and yang of sweet and spicy, with a pleasing bit of a pucker, and the noodles are pliable understudies to the complex broth flavors and main protein and veggie textures. The fish cakes are not the typical, thin pink and white slices that come atop most ramen, but lightly breaded and fried, producing a richer fish flavor. If you need a warm-up, the steamed chicken gyoza are impressively tender and savory, and the pickled assortment of Asian veggies (cauliflower, green beans, and carrots adorned with fresh scallions) makes for a nice side dish.
At the Noodle Lab, you order on a kiosk screen, and a friendly server delivers your brothy bowl to you and later buses your compostable dish.
In Porter Square’s Lesley Building, Xi’an Cool Noodle has finally opened up shop in the storefront that had formerly been the popular udon noodle bar Yume Ga Arukara. (It moved around the corner to a shared space with Izakaya Ittoku late in 2024.) Xi’an Cool Noodle specializes in the Shaanxi province’s street foods (Xi’an is where the old Silk Road started), namely the Roujiamo — Chinese hamburger — and Liangpi noodles — “cold skin noodles.” The shop is in a soft-open mode; Lamb Paomo — lamb and hand-torn flatbread in a bone broth — and other savories are coming as the crew at Xi’an gets the kitchen up to speed and expands the menu.
Those Chinese burgers, which come in beef or pork, are essentially slow-simmered, pulled meat. The burgers come on a flaky, thousand-layer Tongguan flatbread that is the same yeasty bread used for the lamb soup. You can get flatbread grilled crispy (recommended) or soft. I had the pork burger and it was like having a nice lean — and less juicy — pulled pork sandwich in a flaky phyllo bun sans the vinegar, but with a spicy kick. It’s not as greasy or as big as a burger — more bao bun snack-size than an American two-hander. The signature Liangpi are tender wide noodles washed and steamed and served cold with julienned cucumbers, cubes of meaty seitan, and dressed with vinegar and chili oil. The noodles are beefy yet supple and succulent. It’s a sloppy slurp to be sure, but worth it — and something you don’t typically find in the Boston area. (Though Xi’an Famous Foods, an Anthony Bourdain favorite in New York, just opened an expansion in Downtown Crossing.) The Xi’an Cool Noodle folks are based in West Hartford, Conn. At this restaurant, the beads of sweat on your brow are a thank you to the chef.
As at Noodle Lab, you order via a kiosk and take a seat at one of the few cafe tables or bar-tops, and wait for your cool noodles to come up.
A final note: It’s great to see new activity in the Little Tokyo bodega pavilion that has had many eateries (Sapporo, Chocho’s and Tampopo) depart over recent years. Next door, where Tampopo had been, a sign for an incoming Korean bibimbap concept (Mix & Toss) was recently posted.
https://noodlelabboston.com
Noodle Lab Kendall Square
238 Main St.
Kendall Square, Cambridge
$ (out of $$$$)
https://www.xiancoolnoodlema.com
Xi’an Cool Noodle
1815 Mass. Ave.
Porter Square, Cambridge
$ (out of $$$$)
Have a favorite dish or dine out spot that we’ve not covered and you think we should? Email Tom at tmeek@cambridgeday.com.
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