Ya Ya Noodles Chinese Restaurant, Skillman

Ok. I have to be honest here. I did not have high hopes for this place... my reasons for this are twofold. One, their Yelp reviews are REALLY mixed. Super mixed. Not at all consistent. So that was a red flag. Two, a girl that I used to work with really liked it. Why is that a bad thing? 'Cuz I remember some of her other 'favorite' places that I had gone to with her, and they were bleh.

So why did I go? Ever get a craving for something and you know that you will NOT be satisfied 'til you get it? Everything else makes you wince a bit, and you can already taste what you are craving? Yea.. I got one of those cravings for sesame chicken, and it was NOT going away. I tried ignoring it, but it was sesame chicken or bust. Ya Ya Noodles is the closest place to my office that I didn't know for a fact was gross (surprising amount of bad Chinese food in the Princeton area!) so I went.

It was good! WHEW! Surprisingly tasty and fresh food, nicely decorated, and the staff was super pleasant. I was surprised to see that they had a sushi bar/ sushi offerings, and that spawned a second, smaller craving for sunomono. So I ordered one, along with my sesame chicken. and a good time was had by my taste buds, indeed.

The sunomono was good. Not too heavily dressed, but the perfect amount of tang and acid. A nice assortment of fish (octopus, white tuna, mackerel,crab, salmon, and yellow tail), a little skimpy on the cucumbers, but it was fish heavy so why the heck am I complaining? 'Wah, not enough delicious seafood in my salad, I want more greens'... anyone feeling bad for me yet? So yeah. It was tasty. And filling. I didn't NEED sesame chicken after it.... I just wanted it.

And it was awesome! Some of the best I have had in a long time. I am not sure if this was because I wanted it SO badly, or if it was just because it was that good. I will have to go again and report back. But they only used big pieces of white meat chicken... none of that chewy, mystery gristle that often claims to be sesame chicken. It was sour and sticky, salty and tangy, but not gloppy, and the chicken stayed nice and crispy. The portions were also gigantic. For a $7 lunch special I got a huge pile of chicken, a proper side of broccoli and white rice, and then my choice of a bowl of soup, an eggroll, or a can of soda (since I also had the sunomono I forwent the soup for a soda). Not a bad deal at all! Plus the portion was so generous that I had leftovers... like, a meal's worth of leftovers!

I liked this place enough to go back again. Which I will do. And then I will report back to let you know if I find them as great when I am not ready to claw my eyes out to get to some sesame goodness. Stay tuned....

Ya Ya Noodles
Chinese Restaurant

http://www.yayanoodles.com/
Montgomery Center
1325 Route 206 North
Skillman, NJ 08558

Tel.609.921.8551