BOOM 2

It was never my dream to open a restaurant, but I know it is a very common entrepreneurial jones for lots and lots of people. Perhaps it is because I enjoy my food so very much more when someone else has prepared it, unless they have prepared it without love and instead with e.coli. I can see why people like this business vision, though – building a space where people gather to eat your (hopefully) delicious food is very nurturing and rewarding, kind of like being an endless Mom. It can be very creative and social as well. But there are a whole lot of restaurants out there competing for only so many hungry tummies with $$. I guess restaurants fold more than any other business type, and I kind of hate to see that because you know that it probably felt more personal to the owner than, say, a dry cleaning place going bust. You put something of yourself into food; again, trying to avoid the whole contamination thing, of course.

So I like to try out new restaurants because I have an adventurous palate and like to toss those entrepreneurs trying to bring cool new stuff to the ‘burbs a few bones too. Today for lunch I went back to Boom Noodle, an interesting new Japanese place in Bellevue I first went to earlier this year. As I walked past the windows I saw many hipsters slurping up noodles from big white bowls and thought HEY HIPSTERS! WHY AREN’T YOU IN SEATTLE? and then I realized I was dressed like a hipster too so I went in. It’s an impressive space, with high ceilings and lots of sleek warm wood. The black-clad wait staff is even more hip than the customers; perhaps they are imported for their shifts from their other Cap Hill location or something. But even if you are not a hipster or dressed like a hipster, you can still go. No one sneers, I promise.




I wasn’t super-hungry today, so I ordered a green tea which smelled like a barn full of hay but was warm and comforting, and I felt all Buddha-calm, smart, and antioxidanted drinking it.



I also got one of the big noodle bowls, the Coconut Curry soup. This is how it looked when I finished. It was a lot of food.



I looked like a lame trying to eat the noodles with my chopsticks because they were very slippery and kept plopping back into the bowl and splashing soup on me. A really good hipster would never mess up her noodles like that. It was yummy, with lime and cilantro and strips of chicken in a mildly-spicy creamy curry broth. Last time I was there, I let the waiter pick out a selection of appetizers to serve as the meal, and those were really good. Teeny little ahi tuna sushi tacos, mmmmmmm. That would be my recommendation if you go there as well, unless you have some kind of secret to eating noodles competently that you want to share with me.

Boom is a good addition to the downtown Bellevue scene and a very nice alternative to the generic restaurants in the surrounding malls. Take a hipster out to lunch today! Yes, you can take me, too.