A Review of ShopHouse – “The Asian Chipotle”

I’d been wanting to try the newest culinary adventure put forth by the Chipotle brand, but I’m also lazy, and didn’t want to make a trip into DC just for food. Thanks to the Metro gods closing the south exit of the Dupont Circle station for 9 months, my biweekly trip to class now has me walk directly past the new noodle house.

Tiff and I eat a fair amount of Chipotle and also like Noodles & Company, so I thought this place would be perfect. I told her I’d pick some up on my way home from class.

I finished my bowl a few minutes ago.

I ordered rice noodles with tofu. I also opted for the corn and green beans, covered by the red chili sauce. I topped it all off with some green papaya coleslaw.

Eating this thing was like pouring lava mixed with acid down the front of my face. My lips, nose, chin, and beard were all a blaze with capsaicin burn. Calling it spicy would be like calling Jesus “some dude from the middle east.”

I like spicy. I like really spicy. I like so spicy that I sweat and destroy large sections of my stomach lining midway through the meal. This bowl was too spicy. I had to take breaks eating, like it was a pepper themed marathon. My breath definitely contributed to the global warming crisis.

I couldn’t tell what was what. The noodles were noodly, if you set noodles on fire and held them against your tongue. The corn was pretty good, but how can you fuck up corn? I think the green beans were good too, but I can’t remember, as I blacked out about 10 minutes in.

When I woke up, I had pooped in my pants, and the TV was inexplicably set to the Lifetime Movie Network. I ate the stuff left at the bottom of the bowl. Now that I had developed a tolerance, it tasted pretty good.

All in all, I give it an arbitrary 4 stars out of 5 (stars). It can be tasty, if you make it through the hallucinogenic part. If you go, try to avoid getting everything on menu labeled as “spicy”, unless you like Mario Van Peebles cameos in really bad movies about adultery and single mothers.