Top 1 sliced noodle

Top 1 Sliced Noodle is truly a hole-in-the-wall.

It's in a small mall along Merivale and is often overshadowed by its next-door neighbour/sibling(?), Chinese Dragon BBQ. If you can find the right door (we accidentally went into the other store the first time), you'll find a small shop that seats about 15 people max. With its tacky yellow paint and antique chairs, the store is underwhelming and almost... unappetizing.

If you can get past appearances though, you're in for a treat. As you may know, hole-in-the-walls are either hit-or-miss and this one is a real hit.

We got the Spicy Sliced Beef Noodles, the Beef Belly Noodles, and the Shredded Chicken with Cold Sliced Noodles (unpictured because I ate half of it before I remembered) on our first visit. The broth that we were all served (either on our noodles or on the side) had a certain depth, both in flavour and density, perhaps from the long simmering of pork bones. I'm not convinced the soups differed from each bowl - just that the spicy bowl had spicy oil drizzled on it - but we didn't mind. The accoutrements were plentiful and paired well with the noodles. The beef belly was tender, albeit a bit fatty.

The star of the show, however, were the noodles. Thick and perfectly chewy, I don't think I've had a comparable noodle here in Ottawa. I can't really do it justice by talking about it so I'll stop and ask that you try it yourself. Note, there was one instance (we've been here 3 weekends in a row) when the noodles came out soggy, like they had been in liquid for a while. Perhaps it was a bad batch but we asked them to exchange it and they did so without issue.

There may be a bit of language barrier because the servers speak little English but they were still attentive and helpful. It really didn't detract much from our experience.

We also got an appetizer, the Tofu with Preserved Egg, which was a bit underwhelming, to be honest, but with the portion size of each bowl of noodles (each bowl is quite big and you can get a larger size...), I feel like getting an appetizer might be overkill anyway. We got one on the first visit and never again.

As evidenced by our visits every weekend, we really like this restaurant and, at this point, have recommended it to almost all our friends. They're cash only (as many hole-in-the-wall places are) but if this recommendation isn't indicative enough, they're worth the hassle of getting cash.

Great service. Very clean. Lots of selection.
Food was wonderful with large portions. Came out in 10min, fresh, hot and yummy.