Nothing But Noodles

While it pains me to drive up to Round Rock, it's something I do from time to time. The whole corridor along north IH-35 has become a bit of a commercial wasteland, with big box retailers and strip malls of the damned. However, flowers grow out of piles of waste, and I was really pleased to find the new eatery Nothing but Noodles at the far end of the Frontera shopping center.

The menu consists of a variety of salads along with a dozen varieties of noodle dishes, covering a range of ethnicities. You've got Italian, Japanese, Cajun, and Southwestern flavors all representing. All of their sauces but two are vegetarian; I had a bowl of ribbon noodles in a creamy spicy Cajun sauce with soft tofu mixed in. My dining companion tried the Southwestern Chipolte. Both were pretty spicy dishes, but with a good flavor and large portions, and a small piece of bread served on the side. I had mine with a buffalo mozzerella and tomato salad, which was inexpensive and very fresh, it a little small. My friend ordered the cucumber salad, and he found it uninpiring and mushy. We did go for dinner, so maybe it's crisper at lunchtime.

Dinner was around $12 dollars, including salad and drink, but they've got a nice lunch special letting you try two of their pastas for $6. I'm definitely coming back for lunch in the near future to try more out, and I'll expand my review with my opinions of some of their other dishes.

Update (2005-05-14): I had lunch there today and took advantage of their pick two for $7 special to try the basil pesto farfalle and their tomato bisque soup. The soup was creamy and really good, with big chunks of tomato and a peppery flavor. The pasta was also good; there was a lot of pesto, along with shredded parmesan cheese and mushrooms, but I was too full from the soup to finish it, so I grabbed a to-go box and brought it home. The selections for the pick-two are a little limited, but except for two of the soups, everything is vegetarian as prepared.