ancouver restaurateurs have increasingly embraced Pan Asian as one of the cuisines best suited to large, stylish, visually arresting restaurants, the kind with devastatingly expensive cocktails in outlandishly bright shades. Pan Asian has become the culinary supply for all things fabulous, a high fibre prop in complicated interior design formulas that wre always much more than food.

Not so with Noodle Box, where the mantra is hot, quick and inexpensive. When the tiny Kitsilano outpost opened in late 2006, it had three essential ingredients in the bag already: great location, great reviews and a pre-destined following. I guess that’s what happens when your restaurant is: A) located on West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano, B) serves great food/has a couple months of a ‘test’ run before its official opening and C) is part of a Vancouver Island institution. (Two Noodle Boxes have thrived in Victoria since 2002.)

So the Noodle Box thrust open its doors, treating Vancouverites to fresh and fast noodle, satay and curry dishes. And with this ‘soft opening’ critical acclaim poured in. The WestEnder cooed, so did the Vancouver Sun. Capital ‘C’ critic Alexandra Gill from the Globe and Mail pretty much wrote them a nostalgic love letter. Not a bad start.

Serving up stir fry noodle dishes in about 10 minutes, each offering comes in varying degrees of hot – not just hot, medium or mild. Medium-mild imply is still quite hot, and will slightly burn your lips, while medium-hot and up is guaranteed to bring back memories of hot dish in Bali/Koh Samui. All boxes can go the route of veggie (with tofu), prawns, chicken, beef or pork. Flavours of Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia copulate in creations that taste damn fine.