After discovering during my last trip back home that the QQ Noodles in Fremont had closed down, I was completely devastated. Yes, there were other locations, but the Fremont location was the closest. As I was reiterating my sorrows, once again, to my family, my grandmother cut in to mention a restaurant that she had heard about through the grapevine. Her friends had told her positive things about the hand-pulled noodles at “a restaurant in downtown Alameda.” Excited at the possibility of a hand-pulled noodle restaurant even closer to home than QQ Noodles, I dragged my parents to try The Ark Restaurant with me.
We started off with the xiao long bao ($6.99). My parents like to try the soup dumplings whenever it’s on any restaurant’s menu. I find it amusing; to date, they’ve tried dumplings from the famous Din Tai Fung in Taiwan to the random street vendor in San Francisco. The xiao long bao at Ark was disappointing. The skin was too thick, making the dumplings dry on the outside. The dumplings did have plenty of soup, but the wrapping overshadowed the filling.
Two Red Suitcases 