Food is a great way to reduce homesickness, and JYJ Noodle bar sure has a great selection of noodles!

I usually go with the classic Taiwanese beef noodle soup. It’s savory and slightly spicy with long-simmered slices of tender beef and hearty broth. I also love that they add the brown egg, which is a nice touch. It’s surely a comfy food of mine. They also have the clear broth option, which is also a classic and tastes very close to the one back home. Since noodles soup exists in various forms throughout East and Southeast Asia, they also offers other flavors like Tom yum noddle soup, as well as desserts like shaved ice with bubble and black sugar. Both noodle soups are 79 RMB and the desserts are around 40 RMB.

The restaurant sits at 6th floor of IAPM mall. The space is quite limited but clean and organized. The staffs are very attentive and friendly. Overall it’s a great experience and I would definitely go back.

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It’s not often that I find myself dropping RMB 80 on a bowl of noodles. It’d be plain wrong of me to say that these dishes aren’t worth spending money on, but Shanghai has such a smorgasbord of great value, epically delicious bowls that I’ve never really found the need to.

But what do you know – recently I sat down to a meal for four, spent RMB 100 per person on noodles and a couple of shared sides, and left feeling pretty great about it. Even weirder, it was at an anonymous chain store on the top floor of iAPM. The place is literally a counter-top kitchen with food court-style seating around it, so its light on atmosphere – and will be anathema to those that hate dining in malls on principle – but hey, service is quick and it’s easy to get in and out.

The noodles that convinced me are the lightly spicy bowl of dry beef noodles, sprinkled with shavings of thinly shaved high-grade beef and smothered in thick sesame sauce, with a runny poached egg to break apart and stir in. Man, these things. So rich, so hearty, so addictive. Loved them. Also have a lot of good things to say about the spicy stinky tofu noodles that one of my dining partners had. All the noodles had this great toothsome, al dente texture that I really liked.

A lot of people wouldn’t bother coming here when there’s an Ippudo Ramen downstairs and so much great, affordable Chinese food elsewhere in the neighborhood around this mall. Fair enough. I’m not trying to eat here every day. But, it’s something different and something delicious - I’ll be back.

Price: RMB 80 – RMB 100 per person

Summary: Pricy but solid noodle bar on the top floor of iAPM serving up bougie mian, food court-style. There’s no atmosphere and you’ll pay a premium, but ingredients are quality and the flavor is there. Worth stopping by to try out their beef and sesame sauce noodles.  

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