Minty's Beef Roll Crawl

Last Sunday I attended Minty’s Beef Roll Crawl. Now, Minty’s food crawls are pretty intense. They are nothing compare to training for a marathon. Most people drop out but only the best eaters make it to the finish line. The beef roll crawl wasn’t as insane as her Bahn Mi crawl, which had 8 or 9 restaurants. We lucked out and only had five restaurants.

The first restaurant was Doe Jon Station. I cheated on the race and skipped this one because I was still at church, but everyone said that the beef roll was not a traditional beef roll. It was more like a sesame pancake beef & scallion wrapped.

I met up with the eaters at the second location, 101 Noodle Express.

I didn’t realized that 101 Noodle Express is a chained restaurant. Luckily we went to the nicer one in Alhambra –take your mom and dad to this one. There’s one in Arcadia and the other is in City of Industry.

As I waited for the crew, I was amazed at how many dumplings they have…

I must come back for their dumplings. The key to finishing the crawl is not to order any other food beside the beef roll….but that is never the case because our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. We started off with a plate of cold sampler appetizer (seaweed, beef, tofu, ec.) for $10.99. This is a good dish to start off if you’re starving and can’t wait for the hot food to come out.

The next food item was the beef noodle.

I’ve had better homemade noodles. Actually if you want to order noodles, get the fried noodles. There’s no meat (pretty sure the stock is chicken though…) and it’s very flavorful.

We ordered the fried pork dumplings next. They were really juicy and good.



The majority thought that the steamed celery pork dumplings tasted better than the fried pork dumplings. I thought they were both equally good.



We finally come to the beef roll…

They were pretty big and oh so delicious! Oh, I shared the food with nine other people. The green onions and beef were chopped. It wasn’t greasy. I liked the sauce that they put in the roll.

Service was great. The waiters were very patient. They didn’t throw any attitudes when I requested twenty small bowls to split up the two noodle bowls We each spent $7 –that’s including a 20% tip!

Mandarin Noodle Deli was our next stop. This restaurant is family owned and they seriously need to consider hiring more staff. I’ve been here before and don’t recall the shitty service. It took forever for them to take our order and we never got our water. However a few people at our table ordered more food and they were served tea. Also, their beef roll was sad this time.

Quality has dramatically gone down. It seemed their roll was rushed?

What the fudge is with all the green onions!?

I had a sneeze fest eating their beef roll.

I am really disappointed with their beef roll and service. I shall not return. Spent $2 – includes the 20% tip that they didn’t deserved.

Michelle’s Pancake was the fourth stop on the list. It’s in the same strip mall as Luscious Dumplings. I was impressed with their “pancakes” menu.

I was very tempted to try their scallion cake and the smoked pork pancake but since we had one more stop, I controlled my urges. Also, they close at 3pm on Sundays and were kind enough to serve us our beef rolls. I’ll be back to try the other pancakes and their dumplings!

Now their beef roll looked like it had more scallions than Mandarin Noodle Deli but the scallions didn’t dominant the roll like MND’s.

I don’t know if it’s because the scallions were more chopped? Their roll was the least fried too but it was still crispy. Spent $2 – includes a 20% tip. Service was great. We got our water here. At this point, 101 Noodle Express’ beef roll was still my favorite.

Our last stop was supposed to be Mama’s Kitchen. They were on Atlantic Blvd. but closed and moved to New Ave. However Minty could have sworn that they moved from their New Ave location. I called up the restaurant to see if they were open. They were….I just stupidly assumed that I was calling Mama’s Kitchen and forgot to ask what restaurant I was calling…and we ended up at Kings Cup. Minty was right.



Kings Cup’s beef roll was the oiliest out of the four restaurants. However, it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I think had they added their own sauce to the beef roll like the other restaurants, Kings Cup could have been the best one out of the list.

Good meat quality and didn’t overkill on the scallions. Oh, they should really redo the interior. It’s really ugly. I hope they do well. Spent $1.50 – includes 20% tip.

Everyone had major food comatose. We didn’t get a medal at the finish line, just the knowledge of where to go and where not to go. I love Minty’s food crawls!

Want to do the beef crawl yourself?

1. Doe Jon Station: 46 W Las Tunas Drive, Arcadia, CA 91006
Phone#; (626) 821-2088

2. 101 Noodle Express: 1025 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007
Phone#: (626) 446-8855

3. Mandarin Noodle Deli: 9537 Las Tunas Drive, Temple City, CA 91780
Phone#: (626) 309-4318

4. Michelle’s Pancake, 706 W Las Tunas Dr, San Gabriel, CA 91776
Phone#: (626) 293-8098

5. Kings Cup: 1718 New Ave. San Gabriel, CA 91776
Phone#: (626) 289-8984


**Mama’s Kitchen: 1308 Valley Blvd., Alhambra, CA 91803
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