When it gets cold out, I want nothing more than soup and noodles. What better place to get my noodle and soup fix other than Nan Zhou? I had a concert to go to at the Trocadero, so when in chinatown, take advantage!
There’s nothing mysterious about this food. It’s made simply, with the best made ingredients, at unbelievably low prices. When you put good broth and delicious hand drawn noodles together along with some meat and a few veggies and garnishes, you can’t really go wrong.
It’s a nice alternative to pho when you want something a bit different. If I lived in chinatown, I’d eat here way too much.

The next dinner outing ended up at another Dickie Brennan place – Bourbon House. We actually wanted to go to Acme Oyster House next door, but the line was literally around the block so there was no way that was happening. So we tried this place instead. It’s touristy too. It’s pretty big and cool looking. There’s a big oyster shucking area. But then they have a bunch of tv’s and show football. Ugh.
What the heck are these? I think it might be fried green tomatoes with some shrimp. Is that a normal combination?
Here’s a massive shrimp cocktail.
I was in a soupy mood so I got the corn and crab soup. Eh, it was pretty blah. None of us were particularly impressed with this place, so we just had some small bites, perhaps some drinks, and kept on moving.
So we walked a little bit and ended up at Red Fish Grill. Well, this is another Brennan restaurant, this time a Ralph Brennan place. Seriously, do these Brennans run all the restaurants here? At all the Brennan places, you get warm french bread that comes out in a paper bag. There’s pretty cool art at this spot, with lots of them being red fish. Shocking!
I told you I was only going to eat New Orleans food, and I wasn’t lying. I got the alligator sausage and seafood gumbo. This has creole county alligator sausage and seafood simmered in a rich dark roux flavored with onion, bell peppers, celery, and fresh herbs. It’s served with a little bit of rice and it was great. And just to turn this completely into unhealthy food, I got the shrimp and corn beignets. Ok these were like huge and amazing and drizzled with a horseradish gastrique and also served with tomato tossed arugula. Whoa. I could barely eat one of these. I think I felt my arteries clogging. I had to keep eating the arugula just to make sure I didn’t die. We had a crazy server, we all swear that she had to be on drugs in order to be that mellow. I’d definitely have to pick Red Fish Grill over Bourbon House.

For my last night in Cincinnati, I was craving pho. I felt like crap, it was super cold, and I just wanted a hot bowl of noodles in some soup. But apparently, there are no vietnamese spots in Cincinnati. At least not near me at least. So I went for a quick walk to Shanghai Mama’s. This place is really cool looking, in a strange sort of way. It’s dark with lots of red, and I keep thinking opium den. Ha. They’re open late on the weekends so I’m sure there are lots of characters there at 2 in the morning.
I asked the bartender what he recommended and when I told him I wanted a noodle soup, he recommended the rib noodle soup. The ribs were just fine, and so was the soup, but these noodles were amazing! From the texture of these, I could totally tell these were fresh and handmade. I asked the bartender if they were handmade and he confirmed that they were. I told him to tell whoever made the noodles that I was a big fan. I didn’t realize until just now that the menu said “featuring homemade noodles”. Now it all makes sense! This is quality stuff. If you’re a noodle whore like I am, then stop here!