Judge a book by its cover.

That’s something they say you should never do.

And they were right. You shouldn’t.

Because today, you may find yourself in what looks like a downtown hole-in-the-wall, but is actually a new lunch-specific safe house filled with hand-pulled noodles and lamb stew called Gene’s Chinese Flatbread Café.

It’s now open. It’s not at all what it seems. And here are your figures:

Number of weekend days this place is open: 0
Number of weekdays that leaves for quickie lunches: right around 5
Seats along the windows facing Bedford: 4
Other seats: not many
Types of strange Asian drinks in the cooler next to the counter: 6
Approximate number of items on the menu: 31
Number assigned to the quick-to-sell-out House Noodle Soup: 5
Average noodle width of their hand-pulled noodles: 1.25 inches
Dishes involving some form of lamb: at least 3
Volume of your voice needed to order over all the kitchen commotion (scale 1 to 10): 7 (11 if it’s noon)
Menu items featuring eggs hard-boiled in a tea-and-soy-sauce concoction: 2
Ideas this gives you for hard-boiling eggs in different stuff: at least 9
Chance “stuff” will involve sake: 99.9%