One day, two lab rats, Tiffany and Yanfen, were eating away their grad school stress as usual when they realized that they eat out together EVERYDAY! Instead of moaning about how much money they are spending, they decided to go the other route. We are aiming to try every food item from every restaurant in the Champaign-Urbana-Savoy area starting with all 114 restaurants in campus town listed in Urbanspoon. We invite YOU to chow with us!
For our first blog post, we decided to try one of Yanfen's favorite places which is less well known: DOODLES!
Doodles is a cheap little joint that sells Ramen. There are only 2 booths and a small counter to the side.
Tiffany was a bit confused when we walked into the restaurant. Their menu have several different options. You can either make your own doodle bowl from their different array of sauces and add in's or you can buy a pre-made $5 Doodle combo. They even sell Top Ramen for a dollar! (you can see this on the left part of the sign)
We both opted for the make your own option.
Tiffany got: Tonkatsu Doodle with pork balls, baby bok choy, onions, and a raw egg
Yanfen got: Spicy Gourmet Doodle with beef balls, vegetable gyoza, and wakame seaweed.
The owner also told us that they're starting this new thing, where special flavors are only available in fresh ramen instead of prepackaged. Yanfen tried the packaged noodles while Tiffany splurged for the fresh noodles!
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| Presented in a cute ramen cup container with raw ingredients! |
Here's us filling it up with hot water! (Yanfen wasn't paying attention and accidentally filled it up with cold water...oops)
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| Waiting for the ramen to cook was the most difficult part.. |
Here it is all cooked!Yanfen's is on the right (all the beef balls are hidden at the bottom) Tiffany's is on the bottom
YUM!
After we left Doodles, Tiffany was craving something sweet so we stopped by the Cookie Jar on the way back.
There were cookies of all different sizes and flavors and everything looked delicious (If we didn't eat doodles we could totally eat one of each!). They don't have carryout menus, but their website is at: http://www.thecookiejar61820.com/ and they have a list of all the cookies they have.
Today we tried :
Yanfen: White Chocolate Macadamia
Tiffany: Chocolate chip with Walnuts
Final Review
Tiffany
| Doodles | Taste | Price/Food Worth | Fullness Factor | Overall recommendation |
| Tonkatsu Doodle | 6 | 8 | 7 (still room for cookies!) | The soup is a bit tangy (which is interesting) |
| Pork balls | 7 | 3 | N/A | Wish there were more! |
| Baby Bok Choy | 5 | 5 | N/A | |
| Onions | 4 | 6 | N/A | |
| Raw Egg | 1 | 1 | N/A | It disappeared... |
| Noodle Upgrade | 3 | 3 | N/A | I actually preferred Yanfen's noodles |
| Cookie Jar | Taste | Price/Food Worth | Fullness Factor | Overall recommendation |
| Chocolate Walnut Cookie | 7 | 5 | 1 (who gets full on cookies? ) | Pretty tasty, I wish they were still warm and a little bit sweeter, but the chocolate was good! |
Yanfen:
| Doodles | Taste | Price/Food Worth | Fullness Factor | Overall recommendation |
| Spicy Gourmet Doodle | 6 | 7 | 5 | The soup was a little spicy but not much. It tasted like a shin bowl. |
| Beef balls | 5 | 5 | N/A | It didn't really taste like anything but I love the texture of these. |
| Vegetable Gyoza | 6 | 3 | N/A | It had carrots, rice noodles and other veggies. I only got 2 :( |
| Wakame Seaweed | 6 | 7 | N/A | I got a TON of seaweed and it was so good |
| Cookie Jar | Taste | Price/Food Worth | Fullness Factor | Overall recommendation |
| White Chocolate Macadamia | 6 | 3 | 1 | Pretty tasty but didn't taste that much better than store bought.. |
Price Check
Day 1:Tiffany: $6.00 (Doodles) + $1.50 (Cookie Jar)
Yanfen: $5.75(Doodles) + $0 (Thanks Tiffany!)
Overall:
Tiffany: $7.50
Yanfen: $5.75
Hi ,
ReplyDeleteYour first posts just appeared on Urbanspoon! Check it out:
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/106/1582095/restaurant/UIUC-Campus/Doodles-Champaign
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/106/849074/restaurant/UIUC-Campus/Cookie-Jar-Champaign
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