Rice & Spice Thai (Ft. Belvoir)

After eating noodles at ChinaTown Express, the noodle craving got bigger. We (M and L) remembered that there was a Thai place near Olympians. After seeing good enough ratings on Yelp, we thought, "why not" and went to check it out.

Blah blah...no one in the restaurant...blah blah...not great seats...blah blah...average menu. The point is the food was pretty dang good.

M has the Lard Da w/chicken (stir-fried with rice noodles and Chinese broccoli in gravy). Quite tasty and they'll spice it up to the level you desire. Be warned they put a lot of gravy in this, so it's more like thai chicken with wide noodles in gravy soup. The food is better than it sounds, but it's a little off-putting on first glance.

L has the Rice & Spice Noodles, which we both agree looked and tasted like Pad Thai over lettuce(?!?).  Really good, though. Not spicy, though I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige.

Anyways, the wide noodles. If you've had Thai wide noodles, you think you know what you're in for. But these wide noodles are best described like this: lasagna sized noodles bathed in a tasty broth. They are relatively uncut, so you get this super-large "noodles" mixed with yumminess. The wide noodles are fantastic, and we both know we don't generally prefer/like wide noodles.

Cost
$$

Cleanliness
Clean.

Service
Good, but we were the only ones...

Pluses 
Good noodles, esp. for wide noodles
Large portions (we could split a plate)

Minuses
No music or anything in the restaurant
Little atmosphere

Overall value
Worthwhile.

ChinaTown Express (DC Chinatown)

Fresh noodles. So I'm a sucker for any place that is making something on site like noodles, pasta or even dough fresh/handmade. A colleague suggested this place, as I was craving noodles. The DC area seriously lacks for a good noodle place. This may not be the place, but it wasn't bad.

We ordered noodles (L = noodle soup; friend = fried noodles). Also, we got the steamed pork buns, which were okay. I prefer fried dumplings but whatever. I wouldn't order them but I wouldn't not eat them either.

The noodle soup:  Noodles were thick, which was a little surprising. They were slight overdone, too, but I prefer overdoneness on thicker noodles, so this wasn't an issue.  What was an issue was the bland flavor of the soup. This isn't anything to write home about, but at the same time, the noodles themselves were good enough that I'd come back if I had a craving or someone wanted to come here.

The fried noodles: He said, "The noodles were good; not great."

Cost
$-$$

Cleanliness
Didn't really pay attention and not sure I want to.

Service
Servicable.

Pluses 
Price
Fresh noodles

Minuses
It's overall just an average experience

Overall value
Not bad. Again, would come back in a pinch or if someone else wanted to go. It's not terrible, though.