Some buddies of mine came up with the brilliant idea of eating noodle soup for a day's meals. They called it Noodle Voyage.

The plan was to get pho for breakfast, hit the beach, get beef noodle soup for lunch (which I've noted has been increasingly referred to in foodie circles as 'niu rou mien' or NRM for short given its Chinese roots), play some mini golf, and finally get some ramen.

Things followed pretty closely to plan. We drove down to Little Saigon and ate at Pho 54 around 9:30AM.



Like many pho places, this one was cash only but you get a free drink with an order of pho. Most of us chose the Vietnamese coffee but it was way too sweet for most of us to finish.

Next, we went to Huntington Beach to catch some sun and exercise with football, volleyball, and bocce ball. We ended up spending about 3 hours here so definitely got some color. Our schedule was already pushed back at this point so we went for a really late lunch at A & J Restaurant in Irvine. Almost everyone ordered some form of the beef noodle soup (I prefer all tendon myself) and we got a few small plates as well.



I got a little excited and had a few bites before I remembered to take a picture. Another classmate met us up and his parents covered our table's bill. What generosity! Can this day get any better?!

Next we went to Boomers! for some mini golf and laser tag. Fun times. Here's Matt, the winner of the day, setting up for the Volcano hole.



Our next stop was the Korean Bell of Friendship. Wait, what? Korean Bell of Friendship? That was my reaction too but it looked like it was a great scenic view if we had been able to make it there before the sun dipped.



That, and the fact that the gates were closed.



I was able to reach above the fence for the previous picture, but as you can see this one is not so friendly. We cruised on the PCH after this stop and were still able to catch a nice scenic drive along the coast. Nobody was really quite ready for dinner yet (although I think I could have done it) so we made a stop at the Vintage Lounge in a random Doubletree Hotel for a couple drinks. Below is the fireplace in the lounge. The lighting didn't turn out too well.



We were finally ready for our last stop, Mottainai Ramen, except now we couldn't find it. Oh, there it is - in the corner of an obscure plaza with no sign above the restaurant. So happy we finally found it because the ramen was really good. We ordered some beers for the table and they gave us an extra one on the house because they had opened it by accident. Not sure how that happens but we weren't complaining.



I had the Yokohama Striker and added the red bomb ($1.50 more) which is basically a chili paste for added spice.



Broth was good, my only complaint was the portion of pork they gave us. Another plus is that they have a frequent buyer card where after 10 bowls of ramen you get one free - only caveat is that you can't combine cards so you actually do have to eat 10 bowls on your own. Bellies full, this was a good end to our noodle voyage.

The success of the day has led to rumors about a Noodle Voyage 2 in the works, this time headed East instead of South.

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