Oodles Has Oodles of Crap!

Though I usually read The Other Paper for new restaurant suggestions, however, I've never trusted their reviews simply because the food critiques on there seem to be unbiased jokes! Case in point, after reading the latest The Other Paper, I learned that there is a new noodles and dumpling restaurant in town, which was extremely exciting for me because I LOVE dumplings. So the day has come for me to go try this new place called Oodles, and, sadly, it was one of the most horrible food experience I've ever had (even worse than Zen Sushi!).

To start out with, the menu is 90% noodle dishes, and you do NOT have a restaurant named "Ooodles noodle & dumpling bar" that has a lack of dumpling choices. Then I've decided to try the pot stickers along with the dumpling soup with meat and chicken broth, and my fiance tried their Shanghai-style pan fried noodle. The pot stickers tasted exactly like the ones that came out of the factory-sealed Japanese brand pot stickers, complete with a hint process taste. And nothing gets me more excited than factory processed food! (that's meant to be taken sarcastically) The taste of the pot sticker was bland at best. Despite my disappointment, I decided to suck it up and went on with the dumplings with meat, swimming in chicken broth. Unfortunately, it was even more horrible than the pot stickers, because the dumplings were the same factory-sealed Japanese style dumpling, and on top of that, the meat was sauteed with veggies WITHOUT seasoning and then dumped into the canned chicken soup! The soup was greasy because of the sauteed meat and veggies, and the meat and veggies has no taste because it wasn't seasoned!

My fiance's Shanghai style noodle was also terrible. First, when the noodle was served on the plate, you could see about 1/4" of oil on the bottom. Second, the noodle was spicy (and not in a good way), and Shanghai style cooking is NEVER spicy! Third, the noodle was just tasteless and there was nothing special about it! Apparently the owner of Oodles wants to push the store into Chipotle-like chain(per the word of the Other Paper), and for that I applaud the owner's ambition because no one in their right mind would try to create a restaurant chain serving bland and crappy tasting food that you might as well eat McDonald's! (And McDonald's has a Dollar Menu!)

With all that said, Oodles could only get a 1 out of 5 on my yummy scale. And after the horrible food experience, the food also gave my fiance tummy aches as well. So if you need to clean out your system via alternative methods (instead of taking Metamusal), please don't be hesitate to try Oodles on 765 Neil Ave. Columbus, OH 43215. www.gooodles.com