Zao Noodle Bar -- 4/5

I finally took myself out to eat this weekend. It required actively not thinking about how little spare cash I have right now and a big dose of decisiveness -- so many restaurants to choose from, and only one meal a week to get through them all! Found myself at Zao Noodle Bar on University Ave, a colorful, modern, pan-Asian place that my eye has been diverting to for weeks.

1. Food -- 4/5 I had a delicious entrée salad from their fall specials menu -- grilled chicken and mandarin slices on mixed lettuce with pesto vinaigrette. The basil added an interesting, and in my experience more Western flavor, and it worked. It would've worked better if the dressing had been a little more flavorful, but the chicken was well-cooked but tender, and the rest of the flavors in the salad were delicious. Beware: the crispy rice noodles included on most of their salads are piled SKY HIGH. It took about five minutes of finagling before I could eat any salad without sending rice noodles toppling onto the table -- either ask for fewer, or to hold them entirely.
2. Service -- 5/5 Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. I arrived at about 4:45, before the dinner rush came in, and got to pick a little two-fer against the wall. Took out my laptop to do some work on grant applications (even though, to be honest, it felt a little inappropriate in a sit-down restaurant -- I was desperate!), and no one treated me strangely for it. My server was extremely nice, attentive, and speedy. My iced tea -- with free refills, by the way -- arrived practically before I'd finished ordering it, and my full-size salad was out by the time I'd finished my "Research Objective" paragraph. Then, when I wanted to stay and work for a while but was afraid of taking up a potentially valuable table, my server was very reassuring and accommodating, allowing me to stay and type away about heritage preservation in developing nations for what I later realized was nearly two hours.
3. Price -- 5/5 Who would've thought? A full-size salad and a never-ending glass of mango ceylon iced tea for only $13? On University Avenue? Hot damn, I'm okay with that.
4. Location and Setting -- 3/5 Many points for mid-University Ave location. Minus a few for closely set tables in a very echo-y room full of families with small, shrill children. Sorry, not so much my thing. Maybe if the walls absorbed sound a little better?
5. Good for... pretty much anything. Solo nights on the town, dates at any point in the relationship, night out with friends, or parental visits! You name it, I can see it.

Hmmm... maybe next time I'll actually eat some noodles.