So last Holy Week, we were #TeamBahay and stayed put in Metro Manila. What about you, did you have an out of town trip and enjoyed your vacation? 🙂
I watched Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet – it was light and funny, and I didn’t even feel the 10 episodes go by.
Anyway, J was suddenly itching to go out, but everywhere else was closed on Good Friday late evening. Where to go?
Of course, my first thought was, the casinos must be open! We went to Solaire, and it was open. After our time at Solaire, we got bored, so we tried going to nearby Okada, and it was closed. We also tried going to Resorts World and it was closed, too. It was too late to go check out City of Dreams because we were already on the other side (RW side) so we just went home.
We weren’t really going there for the gambling – we just wanted somewhere to go. We were mostly there to eat, walk around, and maybe do a little light gambling. Bonus, traffic was awesome! Meaning, there was no traffic! 
Anyway, we were hungry, so for our midnight snack, we had dinner at Lucky Noodles. Most of the time, we end up at the Solaire food court, where we order our favorite Beef Rendang, but the Beef Rendang was already sold out that night.
It was too late to eat at Fresh (Solaire’s buffet restaurant, which I reviewed before). Unfortunately, Fresh does not have any midnight buffet, unlike City of Dreams. So we ended up at Lucky Noodles. To be honest, Lucky Noodles is difficult to find. It’s right there on the casino floor, but we just never see it every time we walk around the casino!
I remembered it from our first time at Solaire – this was the day Solaire opened and J was in his casino phase. The food court was not yet open so everybody who went to see the new casino basically ended up eating at Lucky Noodles, since I think it was the only restaurant open at the time, aside from the bar. I remember the Australian Beef Hofan at almost P700 for a tiny order that we had that day. It was really delicious, but hella expensive for beef hofan! After that day, we just totally forgot about Lucky Noodles after we discovered the Beef Rendang at the food court. Since it was hard to find, we had to follow the signs to Lucky Noodles.
I want to eat at Fresh again, but the timing of our impromptu casino trips just don’t jive with the buffet schedule…
So, Lucky Noodles.
LUCKY NOODLES
Since the Beef Hofan that we had before was really, really delicious, I had high hopes for a delicious meal at Lucky Noodles.
We had a difficult time deciding what to order for our main dishes. We opted for the Make Your Own Rice Meals (P460) so we could order what each of us wanted to eat. This includes 1 type of rice, 1 type of main dish, and 1 type of side.
For rice, we both chose Yang Chow Fried Rice. For sides, we both also chose the Japanese Crab Salad.
For mains, J got the BBQ Pork Belly, while I got the Fried Pork Chop.
We also ordered the Crispy Chili Beef with Vegetables and Oyster & Soya Sauce (P520) to share between us. It was supposed to be one of their bestsellers.
The food was so-so, but because it was expensive, that made it less forgivable. My pork chop was fried dry. It was seasoned Shanghai style, but it wasn’t breaded. It was just fried, and it was tough and dry. And guess what? They paired it with… lechon sauce! Like, what in the actual F. As in, they served it with something similar to Mang Tomas. I still tried the combo, who knows, let’s give it a chance – but it just does. not. work.
The Yang Chow Fried Rice was… brown. It didn’t taste like Yang Chow Fried Rice.
So, okay, it was Good Friday. So maybe all their good cooks are on vacation. But still… this is bad. Couldn’t they at least have left someone who knew how to cook well?
The Crispy Chili Beef was so-so. Some of the flour coating still tasted raw. For something that’s supposed to be a bestseller, it’s not outstanding at all. It’s salty, with not enough sweet. There’s no complexity to the flavors. It was kinda one-dimensional. Din Tai Fung’s Crispy Beef is way, way better.
The only good thing we had was J’s BBQ Pork Belly (basically a Lechon Kawali). It was delicious, the meat was tender, the skin was crispy. But the serving was small.
The Japanese Crab Salad was okay. Not outstanding, but nothing to complain about. It had a lot of kani strips, corn kernels, cucumber, and a mayo dressing.
SUMMARY
So, in summary: Lucky Noodles, bad idea. Next time we’re caught in the area with nothing to eat, we should probably just head over to City of Dreams and check out their midnight buffet. I just checked their website and they’re not doing midnight buffets anymore 
Next alternative: Aristocrat – open 24 hours!
That is, unless, we feel like forking over thousands of pesos to dine at the other restaurants at Solaire for a midnight snack. Maybe if it was a special occasion and not just a random casino trip… and for that money, I’d just rather eat at the Fresh buffet, where I can eat all of the lobsters, crab and shrimp I want, cooked to order!
Lucky Noodles
Solaire Resort & Casino
