Guo Noodle Bar

Guo Has only just opened so its early days yet. The style of the restaurant is minimalist — bare white walls and dark wood tables and benches. It doesn’t scream upmarket but is modern, comfortable and was certainly nice and warm on a chilly autumn day.
The menu isn’t extensive and by the looks of it is trying to emulate that of Wagamama with a range of noodle, rice and soup noodle dishes.
Unfortunately the menu doesn’t have the variety of Wagamama and I think could do with a little more excitement.
Having said our party of three chose stir fried chicken & noodles (udon only — no choice of ramen), spicy beef noodle (also udon) and a chicken noodle soup (choice of udon or ramen).
The portion sizes were decent. The person having the spicy beef noodles was very impressed. My stir fried chicken was ok bit would have benefitted from the option of added spice. The noodle soup was less than impressive. It lacked seasoning and tasted rather earthy.
Service was friendly and reasonably efficient. On a Friday lunchtime there was only one chef and one waitress. Lee were first in and therefore our good arrived in good time. As it got busier a request for a top up of hot water for our tea was forgotten but we had pretty much finished by then and weren’t that bothered. I have seen more than one waitress there on an evening so I think as it’s not a big place they would easily cope with a busy night.
Overall I liked the place and I hope it does well.
One thing I feel needs to change are the prices. They are way too high for what the place is. My stir fired chicken noodles were the best part of £9. That is a) pricey for a lunch dish and b) very pricey for a plate of noodles. Although tasty they were not nine pounds tasty!
There was a single lunchtime special which was stir fried prawns and noodles for £5.99 which is much more acceptable price. But that was the only special and not much use if you were a veggie or not into seafood.
I think in general Guo need to knock off £2-£2.50 off their current prices to make them more palatable. £8−9 is knocking on the door of Wagamama. But where Wagamama exudes style, quality and an exciting menu Guo does not quite match it. The spartan, bare bones décor and and the rather limited menu of Guo hints more at a (over priced) budget outfit.
Guo needs to either up the menu range or knock some money off their prices if they are to become a popular and established business in Dorking.
I really hope they go onto great things as I think theirs is a good concept.
I would definitely recommend trying Guo and make your own mind up.