Noodle soups and bubble tea are popular with college students. A noodle-soup shop that also offers bubble tea just opened in a Burlington building housing college students.
What is the place?
Located in a St. Paul Street complex that also houses Champlain College students and next door to Shy Guy Gelato, Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar caters to those students and anyone else enticed by the idea of warm noodle soups and refreshing bubble milk tea. The cuisine is primarily Chinese, and one of the specialties is soup featuring handmade Lanzhou noodles. The handmade quality, according to manager Ken Cheung, makes the noodles more elastic and less mushy than some soup noodles become.
The noodles are key, but not even the top ingredient. “The most important thing is the broth,” Cheung said, as the soup base simmers overnight in a blend of spices and Chinese herbs.
Other dishes feature rice noodles, including bowls of Vietnamese pho. The menu at Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar also carries something unexpected at a predominantly Asian-style eatery: Cajun seafood. The restaurant’s owner, Michael Chang, operates a Cajun restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, and said he included Cajun seafood on Magic Chopsticks’ menu to give customers more choice.
The list of appetizers covers the greatest hits of Asian cuisine. Diners can choose from edamame, seaweed salad, fried or steamed dumplings, crab Rangoon and steamed buns, among other small-dish favorites.
The featured drink, bubble milk tea, comes with the signature tapioca orbs and in several flavors. Bubble-tea aficionados face the prospect of deciding between varieties including brown sugar, coconut, honeydew, papaya and taro.
What’s the story behind it?
Chang has operated restaurants in Connecticut and New York for more than three decades. The opportunity to expand to Burlington came when a longtime friend, Connecticut real estate agent Robert Berke, learned about the commercial opportunities in the Champlain College residential building on St. Paul Street. (Berke’s daughter attended college in Burlington; his son, Jon Berke, now works at Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar.)
Chang and Cheung, the manager who has worked with Chang for about 20 years, came to Vermont in July to get the noodle bar up and running. Chang continues to oversee restaurants in Connecticut known as Asian Bistro, which are not affiliated with same-named eateries in Winooski and Williston. Much as he has done in Connecticut, Chang envisions the possibility of opening three or four more eateries in the Burlington area.
Business has been good in the first few weeks, according to Chang. “We like it very much,” he said of his restaurant’s place in Burlington.
Cheung said he and Chang expected good business from students and tourists, which has been the case, but they’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of area residents coming to the Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar.
“We are very lucky,” Cheung said. “We have a lot of local support.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it took about three years to bring plans to open the Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar to fruition. The restaurant finally opened Oct. 13, just in time for cooler weather and the start in earnest of soup season.
“Good timing,” Chang said.
Hours and location
Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar, 200 St. Paul St., Burlington. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. (802) 540-2483, www.magicchopsticksnoodlebar.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Magic Chopsticks Noodle Bar sets up Burlington soup, bubble-tea shop
