It’s Saturday night and @Billyforce, @Jminter and myself are looking for something good and fast to eat. Enter The Noodle Box.

This chain of restaurants was born in Victoria, where a couple named Jodi and Nick  ran the business from a refurbished hot dog cart they had purchased with the last of their savings. After much hard work, the cart became a store, and the rest is history. The Noodle Box currently has seven locations: four in Victoria and two in Vancouver.

The menu is South Asian and the restaurant features 27-foot ceilings and it’s fully licensed. The Noodle Box offers counter service.

The dishes we chose this night aren’t even on the regular menu: Pad Thai, Butter Chicken, and some tasty spicy pork satays. If you decide to come here, make sure that you check the fresh sheet!

Good things first:

The food is fresh and flavourful. The restaurant has an open kitchen concept, so you can see that your food is being prepared fresh and made to order.

Portions are massive! My Pad Thai came to $14 and my dinner could’ve easily be made into two large portions.

They offer a good selection of imported beers. My favourite Tsing Tao (from China) was available and that made me very happy.

The bad:

I was shocked to learn that they charge a 50-cent “substitution” fee. I know most places charge if you request extra ingredients, and that’s fine; but charging for taking away an ingredient?? I’m sorry but that’s not right. Some people have allergy concerns, for example, and they shouldn’t be penalize for it. Not cool.

Jay’s butter chicken had tons and tons of little bone fragments in it. It was hard to enjoy the meal while worrying my friend would choke to death. It was a shame, considering that the sauce was great, and it was served with a fantastic yogurt chutney.

Overall? It’s a good concept on fast South Asian food. If you’ve checked them out, let me know your thoughts.

Follow them on twitter @TheNoodleBox