*Disclosure: I received a complimentary meal from Noodles & Company in exchange for this blog post. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

GIVEAWAY:

If you're a longtime reader of my blog, it's no secret that I'm a big fan of Noodles & Company - I go there fairly often with my family, and I have reviewed them twice ( here and here ) on my blog, as well.This week, I was able to sample some of the restaurant's new dishes, at the Novi, MI location, and I definitely did not leave hungry!We started off with the new Thai chicken soup, which I have actually ordered before, fairly recently. My previous favorite at Noodles & Co. was the chicken noodle soup, which is now a seasonal menu item, I believe, but this is a close runner-up. The Thai chicken soup is a coconut curry soup (although not spicy, in my opinion) with onion, cabbage, red bell peppers, lemongrass, lime galangal, turmeric, and shallots, and is quite tasty; it manages to taste creamy without actually having any dairy in it, which is great for me.We also started off with the garlic bread and Korean meatballs, which are always very good. The Korean meatballs are a little spicy, and the garlic bread comes with a tomato dipping sauce. I'm not going to include *all* of the pictures I took at the tasting (because we were spoiled and tried SO many dishes!) but pictured above is one of my favorite dishes, the Alfredo MontAmore. I generally don't like alfredo sauce because it's too creamy for my taste, but the alfredo sauce here tastes a little different than a "normal" alfredo sauce, and is very good. It also comes with parmesan-crusted chicken, though you can sub that out for any meat you like - all meals are customizable at Noodles & Co.Another of my favorites, pictured above, is the Japanese Pan Noodles - the noodles are a bit thicker here (udon noodles, caramelized) and it comes with a sweet soy sauce, broccoli, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, Asian sprouts, black sesame seeds and cilantro. I actually had never really realized before this tasting that it has cilantro in it, but cilantro is one of my favorite garnishes.One of the two new dishes at Noodles & Co. is the Thai curry, pictured here with shrimp. Funny story - no one at our tasting actually eats seafood, but we still tried the dish without the shrimp after taking photos. It was very good, although a bit too spicy for me - there's pineapple in the dish which was surprising but works very well, in a sweet coconut green curry sauce with rice noodles, broccoli, red onion, snap peas, lime, cilantro, and black sesame seeds. The sauce unfortunately can't be made milder, but you can sub out the shrimp for a different protein of your choice.The last dish we tried was the other new dish, the Chicken Adobo. It wasn't to my taste but my tablemates all liked it - it has kind of a chili-type taste to it, and I'm not a fan of chili in general. It includes chicken (or slow-braised pork, your choice), cavatappi noodles, a smoky adobo sauce, red onion, mushrooms, sour cream, lime, and cilantro. Currently it has olives, too, but we were told that the olives are going to be taken out of the dish soon.Other dishes we tasted included Steak Stroganoff, Buttered Noodles, Pesto Cavatappi, and the Wisconsin Mac 'n Cheese. We had the Pesto Cavatappi with naturally-raised pork, which was a first for me, but I actually really liked the combination of that.For dessert we ended with Noodles & Co.'s rice krispie treats (SO, SO GOOD) and their cookies, which are chewy and delicious.Another thing I really like about Noodles & Co. is that everything is made fresh daily (rather than frozen). They're also committed to keeping their menu items free of things like artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, and sweeteners, which you can read more aboutYou can check out Noodles & Co.'s full menu here , and clickto find the closest location to you.One of my lucky readers will win free Noodles & Co. for a YEAR! That's 12 bowls to use (1 per month). Yum!Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on, and the winner will be contacted via email the next day and have, or an alternate winner will be chosen.Good luck!