I left out some plain egg noodles in a covered empty pot overnight. I put it in the fridge when I remembered, but still. This was a couple of days ago.
I don’t know of any reason I can’t eat those egg noodles. Is there? Just making sure. 
Cooked? A couple days?
I wouldn’t eat them. They could be OK, but 2 days is plenty long enough for mold, etc. to start up. Egg noodles are cheap; being sick sucks. Why take the risk?
If we’re talking dry egg noodles, not cooked yet, no problem.
Is there mold? Does it smell bad? If the answer to both is “no,” they’re probably fine to eat.
I wouldn’t go near them, and I’m generally pretty cavalier about The Food Police.
Why? You’ve got warmth from the heated house temperature, starch (one molecular bond break away from sugar, and most bacteria have no problem breaking that bond) and water and a pH damn near close to neutral. That’s the perfect recipe not just for bacterial growth, but for the same exact bacteria that like to grow in your gut and make you sick.
It’s too close to a human, in other words, with nothing at all to act as a preservative. It may very well breed human pathogenic bacteria.
If you’d have had a nice acidic component on there like a tomato sauce or vinegar, I’d chow down with ya. But plain noodles? The only thing scarier is plain rice (because it has even more surface area than plain noodles.)
You know, it’s very strange. I used to be a germophobe about food. Seemed prudent, for all the reasons mentioned thus far. But I’ve been in Thailand for three years now, where food is left out at room temperature all day and all night, sometimes for two or three days at a time (large portions are prepared and it sometimes takes days for all of it to get eaten). And room temperature here means in the 90s all day long and upper 70s-80s at night. You’d think under those conditions, something would be growing that could make me sick or at least queasy.
I’ve thrown caution to the wind and eat pretty much everything as long as it didn’t look obviously spoiled, and I’ve not been sick (GI-wise) once.
For the OP, I’d go with the smell & taste-test. If it passes, I’d eat.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Thai food uses lots of chili peppers, ginger, garlic, lime juice, lemongrass and fermented fish and soy sauces, does it not? All of those, in various ways, act as antimicrobial agents.
It wouldn’t be the main dish that I’d be worried about, it would be the 3 day old rice served with it.
I have a western tongue so I can’t tolerate the super spicy food here, and I stay away from fermented food because it stinks. My inlaws’ housekeeper doesn’t cook much of that anyway.
I’m talking about stir fried veggies, seafood, pork & chicken dishes. Omelettes are also popular here, often filled with yesterday’s leftovers. White rice stays in the cooker, which I suppose is a somewhat sterile environment. But there’s plenty of fried rice that sits on the table for days just like all the dishes. And there’s lots of leftovers in the fried rice, too. That means stuff that was already a day or two old, chopped up and mixed into fried rice, which sits out another two days as it’s slowly consumed.
I can’t explain it.
I’m certainly not immune to food poisoning. I’ve been poisoned three times in the states. Once from a 7-11 pre-made sandwich, then from a KFC and the third time was at a fancy Thai restaurant in Maryland. That one actually gave me Hep-A.
Wouldn’t they be all kind of dried up? Left out for a few hours, I’d eat them. Overnight? eh…maybe it would be better just to cook some more. Though growing up, my mother left stuff out all the time, like pizza, and I don’t remember getting sick. Though it was a long time ago, and who can say I didn’t get a stomach ache? The moral of the story is, nowdays, when in doubt, throw it out.
A couple of days ago? Dump them.
Are you actually starving and have totally no money whatsoever, and no idea when you will eat again?
An elderly farm woman I know used to prepare a big Sunday dinner (the afternoon meal, down here near Hootervile) always feauring fried chicken, potatoes fried in lard, white gravy, and the like. After everyone had their fill, she just threw the tablecloth over it all and left it out til supper, when they just resumed eating it. Don’t think anyone ever got sick from it.
Two days? Cheap butter noodles? Into the trash they go unless you’re literally starving.
Eat it. Nothing wrong there.
(Even though, report back)
You left them out overnight, in a covered pot? Then you put them in the fridge, where they’ve remained for a couple days?
No problem, as long as they look and smell OK. We do that on a semi-regular basis around here, and none of us have died yet.
Of course, ‘toss them just to be sure’ is never going to be the ‘wrong answer’, but if it were me, I’d have no problem eating them.
“Take a fuckin’ chance bunch of goddamn pussies.Besides, what d’ya think you have an immune system for?”
As my Health Inspector husband says…when in doubt throw it out.