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By David Marques Oct. 17, 2016 Noodles Etc:tc. A beloved 57th Street staple, modestly priced pan-Asian eatery, and a hell of a lot closer than that other Thai place., wWe\u2019ve all eaten our feelings there one seventh week or another. While most Hyde Parkers are doubtlessly familiar with Noodles\u2019 selection of, wellum, noodles, how many can say they\u2019ve ordered off of the elusive \u201cEtc.\u201d menu? Is there even an \u201cEtc.\u201d menu? On behalf of the Shady Dealer I ventured into this culinary no man\u2019s land, and what I found there was shocking, to say the least. The \u201cEtc.\u201d menu is, in fact, real, but before I could access it, I had to agree to put on a special Noodles Etc. blindfold and give the waiter my social (I\u2019m told this is part of traditional Asian culture, or at least Fox News said it was). Of course I found this quite disconcerting at first, but I didn\u2019t want to be accused of cultural appropriation, and I certainly didn\u2019t want to miss out on a delicious Noodles Etc. meal! With all the legal stuff out of the way, I was pumped to dig into a piping hot bowl of green curry, but before I could remove my blindfold and take a look at the menu, someone standing behind me shoved a ball of socks into my mouth and bound my hands and feet to my chair. I wasn\u2019t expecting a blind taste test, but I supposed that this was standard practice for a restaurant being reviewed and thanked my waiter, Jebediah, for the appetizer. But talk about lousy service! I must\u2019ve waited at least 3 hours for the main course to come, even though I was repeatedly assured that I would be put out of my misery if I said another goddamn word. The ambiance was also subpar – frankly, I\u2019m usually not picky about this kind of stuff, but the sounds of screeching tires, police sirens, and aggressive banjo getaway music do not a classy establishment make. To make up for the inconvenience, Jebediah was kind enough to personally feed me my entree, which had the consistency of rock candy and a strange odor. I assume I was eating some sort of weird farm-to-table organic tofu, but whatever it was, I\u2019m just shaking with cravings for more! I was enjoying my taste of \u201cEtc.\u201d up to that point, but before I could order another sampler Jebediah darted upstairs and out the door. I was understandably a little annoyed, but everyone has their quirks, so who am I to judge? After a few minutes I was able to to undo the knot tying my limbs to my seat, and taking off my blindfold I found myself in the basement of an abandoned Cracker Barrel in rural Indiana. Was I disappointed with the \u201cEtc.\u201d menu experience ? Somewhat. Would I recommend it to a friend? Depends on the friend. Either way, it was still better than Packed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-komono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2782,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1749\/revisions\/2782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}