This restaurant in Calgary's Chinatown was highly recommended by a family member, and they were absolutely right. We had been eating overly heavy dinners over the past few days, so we decided to be relatively gentle with our order this time. Here is a breakdown of what we tried: Xiao Long Bao (小籠包 - Soup Dumplings): This is my daughter's favorite, so we ordered two baskets for her. They were executed beautifully. They were well-steamed on a clean sheet, and thankfully, there was no grayish blood seeping out of the meat. The wrapper (麵 皮) was right on the spot--not too hard or soft, not too thick or thin, and it didn't have that rubbery "chewing gum" or mushy "play dough" texture you get at lesser places. The pork filling tasted clean with no funky pork smell. Very nice. Beef and Tendon Noodle Soup: This was just okay, but to be fair, I don't expect a flawless bowl of beef noodle soup from a restaurant that doesn't strictly specialize in it (especially at a Dim Sum-focused spot). The broth was a bit plain and served lukewarm. The tendon, however, was well-cooked and well-marinated with a pleasant taste; it was a bit on the firmer side, which didn't bother me. The noodles were on the softer, sparser side rather than dense and chewy. I personally prefer a firmer noodle, but again, I can't complain too much given the venue. Spicy Tofu and Preserved Egg (麻辣皮蛋豆腐): I really liked this dish. The tofu had a fantastic, fresh soy taste, the preserved egg was delicious, and the chili oil and soy sauce dressing was perfectly balanced. If you are wondering what these "black eggs" are and feel a bit hesitant or concerned about trying them, I highly recommend giving them a shot here. This dish will easily fix those concerns! Overall, it was a great meal. I will definitely return, and next time we have the appetite, I'll dive deeper into the dishes they truly specialize in. read more

Stopped by for lunch. Squid and pepper was good. Squid was tender and white rice was also good. Seems like a local chinese spot and a good place to grab food. read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

Food was good, good size plate, service was rapid, people that works there are very nice and polite. We had fried dumplings, wontons in spicy sauce ( not too spicy) and chicken with ginger chili and soya sauce. Add a bowl of rice. Ordered a tea and got a full pot of it. I Will highly recommend. read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Pan Fried Veg Dumplings(6PC)素鍋貼 Wontons in Spicy Sauce (8Pcs.) 红油抄手 Chicken Steamed Chicken w/Ginger&Chili霸王鸡 - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

The chili chicken is to die for!! The servers were very attentive & the food comes out promptly! The ambiance is great! It gets super busy towards dinner time! read more

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The food was priced average for Chinese restaurants - Peking Duck $59 - Add fried rice $10 There wasn't a lot of meat, mostly skin We had beef and cucumber roll $11, this was delicious Bean tips $18, delicious garlic flavor Arizona iced tea $4.50 and a coke The service was excellent. Bill came to $112 before tip Would return to try more items! read more

A little gem in an unassuming location. They have a good selection of dim sum, all well prepared & tasty. We especially enjoyed the chicken feet and seafood dumplings. The sui mai, stuffed eggplant, and turnip cake are also worth mentioning, although the latter could have used more lop cheong & dried shrimp. They also have a variety of teas. This is well worth revisiting! read more

This one in the heart of Calgary Chinatown. It's same owner but it's more of Northwestern foods, more spicy rather than more Guangdong province foods (Cantonese foods) people are lining up. Very busy place since it's not too many seatings. Foods - 4-5 Service- 4 Ambiance - 4 busy Overall, can come to try different (8 major types) Chinese foods. China's eight major cuisines: Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, Zhejiang cuisine, Anhui cuisine and Shandong cuisine. read more

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Came back again and food was as excellent as last time. Service was friendly and overall ambiance was nice! Highly recommend! read more

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OK I was definitely NOT expecting such authentic Chinese food in Calgary! We came from Los Angeles and was visiting Banff. On our last day before leaving, we were craving some home food and decided to stop by Great Taste. In heart of Chinatown, parking was not hard to find. Unlike other cities, Chinatown didn't feel sketchy even after dark. We did park right in front of the restaurant so that may be different based on how far your walk is. Plenty of seating inside the restaurant as well, there was little to no wait after we had ordered, just like you'd expect at a Chinese restaurant. Most noteworthy was the Steamed Chicken dish that we had. The chicken was so tender and juicy, and the sauce wasn't too spicy either. It was warm, slightly spicy, just a perfect dish! We also ordered some dumplings, stir fry rice cake with pickled cabbage, and pea shoots in soup. All were VERY tasty and on par with quality we find in Los Angeles. We also ended our meal with their dessert - deep fried red bean pancake. I haven't had it since living in Hong Kong and it definitely brought back memories!! Thank you Great Taste at Calgary for bringing the great taste :) read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Pork dumplings(南翔小籠包), stir fry rice cake with pickled cabbage (雪菜肉絲炒年糕), pea leaves in soup (上湯浸豆苗), steamed chicken (霸王雞) Delicious! - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

My family and cousin were craving some good ass Chinese food in Calgary and hoped to god that this GREAT TASTE restaurant would actually taste great (we know all about those marketing strategies, sly sly restaurant owners). We've came here so many damn times in the span of 5 days, so here are the ones that stood out to me the most: -BEEF AND CUCUMBER ROLL: yasss, usually its just beef wrapped in a green onion pancake... but that sliced cucumber makes such a refreshing difference -soup dumplings: PERFECT (especially since it was -20 degrees out) -beef noodle soup: its GIANT. please share. Theres tendon in there, I love that shit, soup is delish. does not come with bokchoy like most places have -spicy wontons: the best part of the spicy wontons was actually the sauce it was in -szechuan style chicken: I think thats what it is.... I cannot handle spicy, but this was soo good. it wasn't SPICY it was the actual Szechuan numbing spice. It looks super intimidating because it look like hell in a pot, but trust, please get it. decor was super modern, which I liked. parking it pretty terrible, honestly. we parked out front though bc no one wanted to park in the wall of snow we usually came when there weren't that many people, so service was great! I think it's because it was the coldest winter Calgary has had EVER so people were smart to stay inside. read more

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At the recommendation from my nephew who lives in Calgary, he recommended that I check this place out for their dumplings. Keep in mind I'm from the States living in the San Francisco Bay Area and used to some good Chinese food. First impression was this place was jumping with Take Out Orders at 5 pm on Mother's Day. I started off with the 6 soup pork and green onion dumplings followed by the broccoli garlic and Singapore vermicelli noodles as my main entrees. For being in Calgary Chinatown, I thought the dumplings were okay but not the best that I have had regarding taste. The garlic broccoli was flavorful but wish they offered half portions as I was dining alone and the greens were coated with excessive oil. For the vermicelli dish, it was okay but once again they were a bit heavy on the oil - to the point that my lips felt like they had a coating of vaseline on them. Service was a solid five despite the fact that they were busy due to Mother's Day and good overall was a three which rounded up to a four for today's experience. On another note, there was a party of 6 next to me and since this was a larger group, the dishes they ordered to share looked good which I would have also ordered differently had I dined with others. read more

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Came for the xiaolongbao, those savory little pillows of dough filled with hot broth, brought to the stable in a steamer basket. Those those not familiar, just call them soup dumplings. Pretty good effort, as good as many I've had in Queens and NYC, and to be honest, they have to be very difficult to make. While I've had better, these were a welcome treat and were solid. We arrived on a Saturday for lunch at opening time and were pleased with the service and the restaurant's general approach to all things COVID-19 with hand sanitizer available near the door and the entire staff properly masked. Patrons were seated apart from each other during our stay. We also ordered the spicy wontons and scalion pancakes with hot tea for drinks--yea, pretty much all things 101 for this type of cuisine, but we can't get this where we come from. All in all, a great spot we'd definitely return to and saw many dishes we'd really love to try, meaning next time we'll bring some family in tow and do it up right. For now, a solid destination worthy of it's name! read more

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We were looking for a good restaurant to eat in downtown Calgary and stumbled upon this place because it was crowded during dinner time. That's always a good sign. There were two waiters serving the entire restaurant, and they were extremely impressive with their ability to multi-task, while still managing to be pretty attentive. We decided to order the spicy beef tendon noodle soup, soup dumplings (pork), deep fried pork with sweet sauce, and salt and pepper squid. All of these dishes were really good, except the deep fried pork. The deep fried squid was really crispy and tasty. This was probably our favorite dish. The beef in the noodle soup was flavored very well and tender. The soup dumplings were good, but not much different than others ones I've had before. I couldn't really figure out how to assess the deep fried pork. It was very sweet (maybe too sweet) and didn't strike me as being as authentic compared to the other dishes. Otherwise, I would certainly come back here if I am ever in the area again! read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Salt and pepper squid - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

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Back again 2nd time this week--for the Xiao long Bao (soup dumplings). Yes, it's that good. Just order 2-3 orders and some veggies. Calgary is very fortunate to have this made to order quality XLB. Before I said it was like Din Tai Fung--actually it is better cause it is also less than half the price but same high wu read more

In the heart of Chinatown. Glad we found this place. Tried their XLB and pot stickers. Amazing taste. What's even more awesome was that the pot stickers are traditionally super oily and this place not only made it nice and crunchy, moist inside, without the nasty leftover grease. The dough was amazing. Very chewy and you can taste the freshness of it. At other places it can easily be a dough that was frozen for sometime and would lose its texture. Definitely recommend this place for Chinese food Certainly impressed with the authenticity of its taste read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Excellent XLB - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

Delicious, clean, quick and friendly service. We came for the soup dumplings because we loved them from Din tai fung in the Philippines and this restaurants version were great. Good size (not enormous) nice texture and lots of flavour. We also had the gingerbeef. Crunchy and mildly sweet. Really big lol. read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

Very impressed and loved the food here. Landed in Calgary last week and family and I were looking for authentic Chinese restaurants and this was recommended on TikTok. Tried it and very impressed. Would go again read more

Recommend: the six dumplings and the tea also amazing rice. They brought our noodles, and they are amazing read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Noodle Soup - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

Note that the rating, and review ahead, is solely for the ONE dish I tried... There's a chance I've found my new Chinese go-to when in Calgary. A craving for noodles on a layover led me here, and to dan dan noodles that I really enjoyed! It's been a long while since I've found dan dan noodles that was more peanut-ty, rather than overwhelmingly spicy, and so tasty. My only complaint is the small-ish serving... but perhaps that's simply a hungry stomach talking. Would definitely come back to try other dishes. Or maybe just more dan dan... read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Dan dan noodles - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

Flew in from LA and stumbled upon this place. Great soup dumplings and the green beans with ground pork were excellent! It was just two of us, so we couldn't order more than that (in fact, we couldn't finish just those two items). There were so many items on the menu that sounded delicious. Nice service as well. High recommendations from us. read more

Great Taste is located in Calgary Chinatown. After a week of meat-centric meals at Banff we had craving for some good Chinese food. Yelp led to back to downtown Calgary. We also had to go through there anyways for the airport back to the USA. The restaurant is located in Calgary's Chinatown, which is really just a few blocks from downtown. Virtually no street parking, but on weekends lots of nearby pay lots for 3.00 CAD all day flat rate. Its a pretty large restaurant, but the menu is what's impressive. Its physically large and has a mix of Shanghai-style, Szechuan, and some Canton-style dishes. Limited live oysters, shrimp, and clams too. They include frog too so it must be authentic! Overall 4 stars. Great Taste tastes great, especially the live shrimp. At 25.00 CAD/lb the boiled shrimp was so smooth, firm, and sweet. All that's needed is some soy vinegar dip. Much cheaper than what we had in Richmond Vancouver, and about the same good quality. The next best dish turned out to be the simple garlic stir-fried Gai-Lan - crunchy, slightly oily, and so badly needed since we did not eat too many veggies over the past week. Pork wontons with spicy chili oil were decent - I always like the smooth skin of the wrappers and the kick from the sauce. The last two dishes were mediocre. Shanghai pan-fried pork dumplings were small and didn't have that oily texture I like. In fact, the wrapper was on the dry side. The 5-spice sliced beef noodle soup had tender and flavorful beef and chewy noodles; however, the soup was on the saltier side. If we come back to Calgary we will definitely consider coming back to Great Taste. read more

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High Hopes - the ambiance and cleanliness are great. Air conditioning and a neutral smelling restaurant with easy and well organized menu make this a 3 Star. The food... It had other ideas. Xiao long BAO, sad and under steamed. Meat was grey and dough was chewy at the top from under-steaming. The ja jian mien, under seasoned with sad cucumbers and lack of noodle topping. We asked for more topping, to which the server said no and gave no alternative... Redeemer was the beef roll, still only a 6/10 but a winner amongst the rest. read more

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Great big selection menu, great price and even better taste !! Will definitely be coming back here when I'm back in Calgary. read more

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Being in Chinatown, we were initially going to have dinner at Calgary Court again, but on a whim decided upon this restaurant as it was right next door and we've never been here before! It seemed to have pretty good volume so we decided to give it a try. Atmosphere: 3/5 Overall brightly lit and neat. It wasn't too busy but there were already a few tables. Some customers seem to come quite regularly. We were seated at a booth table near the window. Unfortunately, the tables were somehow very low compared to the chairs so we had to hunch quite a bit forward to eat. Located conveniently in Chinatown but parking can be a bit of a challenge as usual, but not bad for a weeknight. Food: 3/5 On the menu, there are quite a number of traditional chinese dishes with some focus on shanghai dishes. For dinner, I opted for something simple- the shredded pork and snow cabbage rice noodle soup. Overall adequate size. However, there was quite a bit of sauce in the soup that was not very mixed in and made it quite salty. There are quite a few other menu items, and if we had a bigger group, I wouldn't mind trying some of the shanghai style dim sum Service: 3.5/5 adequate, overall friendly Price: 3.5/5 Reasonably priced for the amount and quality of food Overall: 3.5/5 Overall a good alternative for Chinese food here located in chinatown; would love to try some of their other menu items. read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

This is one of my favorite authentic Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. It has a wide variety of food from hot to cold dishes. I like the menu layout, they have with lots of pretty pictures to help give a sense of what it looks like. I personally like their Mapo Tofu due to their numbing taste sensation from the sauce. Here are my recommended food menu items to try: -Ho Fan -Xiao long bao -Chicken Taiwanese in hot pot -Beef & Cucumber Roll -Deep Fried Chinese Doughnut (Ask for the 3 sauces, Hoisin, Soy Sauce & Sesame) The service and food delivery is quick. Be warned that this establishment can get busy frequently, make sure to book a reservation when coming in a party of 4+. read more

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We were there on a Sunday evening ahead without reservation. Since there were only two of us they gave us the only table that was available. It happened to be a for two near the door. Menu and tea arrived promptly. The server at the front desk took out order. We chatted and waited. About half an hour after taking out order. The server at the front came to confirmed or order and said she'll follow up on it. Ten minutes later the first item appeared and the rest followed. We speculated that she had forgotten to place our order. But they were busy! Based upon out observation we think the restaurant with only three servers was vastly short staffed. The food is good enough to warrant giving the restaurant a second try. read more

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During our visit in Calgary we discovered this authentic Chinese restaurant downtown. They seated us promptly but our order was not taken right away. We noticed the place was very busy which made us think we made the right decision. The customers were mainly Chinese so again it made us think food were authentic. The food was exquisite and each dish that we ordered had distinguish flavours. The prices were on a higher end and portion of food were not big. This is by far the best Chinese restaurant we had eaten in all of Alberta. read more

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This is by far the best Chinese food I've had - and I have had a lot of Chinese food! The veggies are so fresh and the food is delicious. We ordered quite a bit from the menu, and I absolutely loved the Ginger Beef. I have never had Ginger Beef before and it was delicious. Their eggplant dish is a great veggie option and their Dan Dan Noodles was so light and tasty. Try this place!! read more

We came here based on the reviews. We ordered the chicken fried rice (the chicken was undercooked), kung pao chicken and beef and broccoli. The kung pao chicken was some of the best we have ever had from a flavor perspective. The service was a bit slow but everyone was very nice. We would potentially try it again, but maybe go with other things on the menu. read more

Had the soup dumplings to start and then dove into the stir fried Pea vine with garlic and the sliced Braised pork belly with preserved vegetables. All three items were great. The tough part was the service as the two servers seemed to be more interested in chatting among themselves than checking on me, my water-always empty and upselling or adding to my order. For Calgary, this was an unexpected surprise and I will be returning for sure with friends next time to sample a broader range of food. read more

This restaurant happened to conveniently be next to our Airbnb, so we decided try this hole in the wall place......SO HAPPY WE DID! We ordered the Dan Dan noodles, pork soup dumplings, spicy wontons, special house fried rice (was meh) and a meat dish (forgot the name but it was salty and served cold). Our favorite dishes were the Dan Dan noodles and the spicy wontons. We wanted to go here again, but didn't have enough time. read more

This looks like an amazing Dim Sum place, but my husband wanted duck and this looked like the place for it. There was a cheaper duck option that he wanted to try, it's called Tea-flavored Smoked Duck and it was just delicious. It took a bit longer to arrive than the other food, so we were pretty full on Bao and Sweet & Sour Chicken, but we loved it. We packed more than half the duck and what was left of a HUGE plate of S&S Chicken and it made a fabulous leftover lunch the next day. read more

Great service but the food is so bland that it was shocking. No salt no spice no flavour- tough combination.. disappointed to say the least.

I've been to mainland China 5 times. In Shanghai, the level of food quality and presentation is much higher than any Chinese restaurant I found in Canada - you can't really compare that aspect. What I can do, is tell you what I thought about the food and service :) Xiaolongbao, famous shanghai soup dumplings. I've had xiaolongbao at 4 different restaurants in Calgary and compared to the ones I had in Shangahi, the ones at Great Taste are the closest you will get to them in a Calgary restaurant. They even have crap xiaolongbao which is pretty cool although I didn't try them tonight. Nai cha, their milk tea. Their milk tea was a cold version and served with ice. It was too sweet for my liking. I'd rather eat dinner here first then go to Calgary Court next door to satisfy my naicha craving if I had to. Dan dan mien, their "spicy" miso based noodle soup is good. The flavour and richness compares to Chaya in Banff, but the noodles are different of course :) Everything is is not bad. I still want to come back with an empty stomach and try out at least half of their menu, but I've got time :) They have the widest selection of dishes I'd be able to order in Shanghai that I found in Calgary which is a good addition to the city. I was pretty happy and my wife is too. The service was great and they speak mandarin which is also great because its somewhere I can practice ordering food. read more

I've been to Great Taste twice. The second time was much better because based on the Yelp reviews, I knew what to order. The smoked duck and fish mah soup was a HIT! The duck was so flavourful and meaty! The skin was crispy and the side of salt brought out the flavour of the meat. I enjoyed the four little white buns, which I used to make mini duck sandwiches. The soup was lovely - the crab was fresh and sweet. The flavours were delicate. Service was good. The restaurant was quiet, so the two lone servers were attentive and polite. I'll be back for the cumin ribs and hot and sour soup... and anything else that you Yelpers recommend. read more

Great Taste Chinese Restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

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Excellent food!! I've always been curious of this place because there's a lot of people coming in to eat. So had the chance to dine in here and food was great read more

For the overall value, style, decor and menu selection---I say it's a cross between Shanghainese, Szechuan and typical chinese fav dishes, like the ma po tofu...taste good, while not great, makes this still worth repeating...despite the higher than expected prices in Chinatown, I'll be back. Ordered the noodle soup with beef tendon brisket, for $8 pretty good value, nice chunks, about 3 of each but I liked the noodles; fluffy and cube shaped :) diced cucumbers impressive. chinese brocoll/ga lai tasted delicious to me after a week of no veggies lol. accept credit. good service, came in 30 min to closing, 10pm is way too early for my standards lol. But it's bright and clean. read more

I come here often with clients. Service: 3.5 stars you get the service you need to ask for it. Dinning: 4.5 stars (clean) Food: 4.5 stars. Washroom: 3 stars This place don't look like much from the outside but it offer both southern & northern Chinese food spicy & not spicy. You will find one of the largest selections any restaurant will offer. These combination is not easy for one chef to make and I have tried almost all the dishes to my amazement it was all done very well food was ver tasty and full of the right flavour. Meats well seasoned with the right spice. Most of my clients that are little picky, can't decide or not knowing what they want this is a good choice. They also have large tables to accommodate bigger groups. read more

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Once again across 3 mains, very different ratings: 1. Hung sao niew lo mien (spicy beef noodle soup) - very good hung sao with great sauce, beef chunks and bits of green, but the noodles were a mite pasty (4.5 stars) 2. Ginger beef - ah but the old chinese trick with a wee bit of mystery meat in the centre of thick and fattening deep-fried batter did me in. Nice flavour, but for the pretence, only 1.0 star. 3. Spicy squid - strong strange-accented flavour with plenty of heat (green peppers), onions and a decent amount of squid (1.5 stars). Service was pretty good, especially with one server who warmly responded in Mandarin when I partly ordered in it. Dwai dwai? Also features some dim sum dishes and shanghai noodle versions. Attractive-looking large selection of dishes, but with prices hovering around $16/dish, just not okay for what one receives... Roomy, well-furnished, and attractive interior, this restaurant can easily accommodate large parties: patrons were mostly chinese with a liberal sprinkling of whites. I'm not sure, but like other Chinese restos, there is the caucasian and the different Chinese menu: it's easy to suspect that they trot out different dishes for the two customer groups... Took out a very full two meals that's kinda cool but for the price ($44): the next day the ginger beef and spicy squid were even more disagreeable. Feeling ripped off, we chucked them. Although I like to round up, just cannot in this case. Dishonesty ripped the guts out of my assessment. So will average down instead with 1.5 stars. We'd return for the soup for sure if I can get a better quality noodle, and maybe try another dish or two, but it's so dumb to hide tiny bits of meat in a big globs of gross-looking batter. Don't owners know that 'return business' is the secret to longterm success, not smiling golden buddhas, red lanterns, or burning blood or spirit money on temple holidays...? Marginally better overall than Calgary Court next door, that old trick haplessly degrades this assessment. On the same street and in the next block, Silver Dragon still takes them both down, and nearby Han is decent enough, and Bon-ga is much better. read more

COME IN BEFORE THE HOARD COMES. Seriously, we beat the rush by five minutes at 1130 and saw an empty restaurant be filled tot he brim in the span of the next 15 minutes. Xiao long bao here is ok - a bit small, not quite as soupy as I would like and a few of them leaked. Tasted good though. The noodle soups are relatively cheap and affordable - My wife got the Shanghai wonton noodle soup - good wontons and light broth with excellent noodles. I got the five spice beef noodle soup (it's not spicy). The beef is very punchy and packed with flavor, though you don't get that many slices. The broth is very light and clean tasting, yet very flavorful, one of the best I've had. They have a lot of lunch specials too that include soup + a drink for less than $10, so if you want more than just a bowl of noodle soup, they got your lunch taken care of. read more