HOT: Gold Star Noodle House, Shop 7 and 8 Mid-City Arcade, Bourke St, Melbourne

I ran into food blogger Jess Ho on the street one lunch hour and we immediately launched into a soup noodle discussion. She directed me to try ?the place across from Dessert Pancake House for the pick-your-own-topping Shanghai noodles?.

So in the fourth of my soup noodle posts, I tried out Gold Star Noodle House and the aforementioned noodles. Pick three toppings, the kind of soup and the kind of noodles, all for $8.50.

If I hadn?t been armed with Jess? recommendation I would have (a) never stepped into grungy Mid-City Arcade and (b) been drawn to the queues and heaving crowds of the opposition, Dessert Pancake House. Having never eaten at Dessert Pancake House I can’t tell you what the attraction is, but it?s definitely worth turning 180 degrees to try the relatively quiet Gold Star Noodle House.

Orders are promptly dealt with, as befitting a cheap in-and-out noodle joint fitted with plastic chairs and wipe-down laminate. While the menu extends to lots of dish and rice combos popular with office workers, I zoomed in straight for the noodles, selecting wontons, shiitake mushrooms and bok choy in a beef brisket broth and Shanghai noodles.

A huge steaming bowl of soup came out quickly, wafting a very strong scent of beef brisket. Unlike a lot of Hongkongnese people I know, I don?t actually enjoy eating lumps of beef brisket. But it is a smell and taste from my childhood (though I left HK when I was six) and it gives me nice nostalgic goosebumps. So I loooooved the soup base ? beef brisket goodness sans the actual beef brisket!

As for the toppings, they were ok but nothing special. At least the wontons weren?t rock-hard, which is my constant fear with wontons. I also enjoyed the nobbly uneven Shanghai noodles, which I?m told are quite hard to find in Melbourne (though I note that Dessert Pancake House also has them).

I?m not particularly sensitive to MSG so I can?t really tell you whether my dish contained a lot of it, a little or not at all. But it was a tasty, soothing and filling lunch on the cheap, and I?d definitely return again.

For more soup noodle suggestions, try Ramen Ya, The Grand BBQ and Ghin Khao.