Pasteur – Moline, IL

We dropped by HotGirlsBrother’s parents house to pick him up for dinner and we ended up picking up his folks for dinner as well. Certainly no problem at all, since they both rule. We had planned to go to Pasteur for Vietnamese food, because our friend Smallz is a MAJOR fan of this place. Since he ended up not coming to the Quad Cities this weekend, we decided it would be in his best interest if we ate their anyway and took photos of ourselves having a great time eating great food. We love you, Smallz.

Pasteur is run by a hilariously loud Asian man. He yells across the restaurant at customers and at his staff (not like angry yelling, just dishing out orders and jokes and such), and he remembers you if you’ve ever eaten there before. He’s got an insane memory. Weird. He's also got a bunch of crazy wild white hairs growing out of the side of his neck that you can't look away from. Seriously.

We got seated, loudly, and ordered some appetizers. A couple of pot stickers and some fresh spring rolls. These came out and were delicious. EyeHeartPizza had some of the pot stickers, but I stuck with the spring rolls. They’re my favorite. Really delicately wrapped cucumber, mint, and shrimp. HotGirlsBrother referred to them as the Cuban version of spring rolls, since they were rolled so tightly – it’s true. But they are delicious.

The waitress helped me decide between a couple of dishes, but I ended up with the Malaysian Noodles with chicken. This dish was one of the best ones I’ve had there. Fantastic rice noodles (linguine-style) with chicken and vegetables and I used the hoissin sauce to dip stuff into. Fabulous flavor and texture. I would definitely get this again. None of us ended up ordering Smallz' favorite dish – we didn’t want to spite him that much. We do like the guy, after all.

One of the most hilarious conversations we had was about HotGirlsBrother's facial hair. We've all decided he needs to grow just a neck beard, shaving only his jawline and up. It will wrap around his head like a furry turtleneck. He can grow it down into his shirt like an ascot made of whiskers, or what we now refer to as "the Whis-cot". Ingenious!!!

I totally forgot to take photos this time. I was soooo excited to eat here, I just powered straight through everything. That's how good this place is. Sorry about that.

The service did take a really long time, even for simple things like water. I guess I knew that because I remember telling people that before, but I also tend to forget when the food is that good. Seriously, this place has fantastic food and a hilarious character of a host. He kept giving EyeHeartPizza a difficult time since she said she had never been there. He suggested that she pay if everyone isn’t completely happy with their meals (actually, he said this a couple of times), and then he told her, if she didn’t like it, she could go across the street and eat at the Maid-Rite. Hilarious.

Top 5 things about Pasteur
1. Malaysian Noodles
2. Hanging out with HotGirlsMom and HotGirlsDad is always a blast
3. Eating at a restaurant to spite someone (jokingly, of course) makes the meal even tastier
4. The fact that people mispronounce the name seriously angers HotGirlsBrother. I love it
5. The owner/host is the reason some people come back. The amazing food is the reason the rest of the people come back

Bottom 5 things
1. Speed of service
2. I do wish Smallz would have gotten to eat there with us, since the whole thing was his idea in the first place
3. The parking at this place is pretty small, but it only seats a handful, so it’s probably customer-appropriate, unless you arrive in multiple cars like we did
4. Now I’m hungry for the Maid-Rite
5. Spring rolls weren’t the best I’ve ever had