Let’s face it: No one rivals the Chinese in terms of sheer noodle mastery and versatility. We’re talking oodles and oodles of ingenuity-spanning centuries, regions, and tools. Oh yes, there are tools. Rolling pins, serrated knives, newfangled noodlemaking whatsits that whir and stir mounds of dough until – poof! – the perfect strands come out, with dimensions so geometrically precise, you’d swear it was plugged into some magical noodle algorithm.

Any true noodle connoisseur, though, will tell you otherwise. We know that it’s never really about the tools. It’s about the hands. Big, strong, agile, tireless hands. Hands that know when to stretch out and when to fold in; when to knead the dough into submission, and when to peel, gently but firmly, doughy chunk by doughy chunk, so that it eventually dissolves into a gentle but firm mass in your mouth. Any noodle that carries its weight has to feel weightless; its texture is a many-splendored thing. Take your lumps in life, but keep them out of your noodles.

Once a young Chinese American lad whose bottomless pit of a stomach craved noodles for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack, I’ve since grown into a twenty-something Chinese American whose stomach is no longer bottomless but still rises (quite literally) to the occasion whenever noodles are involved. In Shanghai, the art of making noodles that are taut and tart – a practice which originated in the North and continues to flourish in Taiwan – is a bit of a novelty, which is a nice way of saying it’s considered peasant food. Whenever I tell my Shanghainese friends and colleagues that I’m off to my favorite noodle spot, the Henan La Mian Noodle Shop in the neighborhood formerly known as the French Concession, there’s a bit of consternation and regional snobbery in their responses that reminds me of why I generally stay coy about where I’m going to eat. Either that, or I tell them about the rats.

In fact, as mind-blowing as the noodles are, it’s the rats that people end up remembering most vividly, even though most have never actually seen one. I have, but it was a long time ago, and it was nowhere near my food (or, presumably, the boiling hot cauldron in which the noodles are cooked). Nobody said noodle heaven in Shanghai comes equipped with pearly gates – or stainless steel chopsticks, for that matter. But if you’re here for the noodles – and believe me, you should be – then the following bare-boned details should suffice:

1.      They’re from Henan and they’re hand-pulled
The knife-cut variety at Henan La Mian are also pretty fantastic: thick, doughy, elastic, and soaked in a moist, subtly fragrant vinaigrette sauce that tickles the senses without overpowering them. But oftentimes, the consistency isn’t quite there, and knife-butchered noodles can be a bit of a killjoy, throwing the timing of your slurp off by a tick or two.

The hand-pulled noodles, on the other hand – flavor-wise, consistency-wise, sauce-absorption-wise – are simply divine. Each strand looks as if it’s been woven (yes, woven) through a fine-toothed comb, and each bite melts in your mouth, not in the splintered fragments of your chopsticks (unlike the wimpy Shanghainese noodle). Henan cuisine has a take-no-prisoners quality about it, and these noodles are too busy bludgeoning your taste buds to mince words.

2.      They’re meatless and soupless

This isn’t a Taiwanese beef noodle broth we’re dealing with here. If you order the soup, brace yourself for a oily, salt-ridden mess, and if you have any aversion to meat that’s festering in a suspicious-looking container, then this is hardly the right time to get over that aversion.

3.      They go great with green pepper and tofu strips

Don’t be fooled by the menu, which promises a symphony of home-styled delights, but really only consistently delivers the goods with a solo dish that translates clunkily into “green pepper with bean curd strips” (qingjiao gansi). Tell the noodle shop proprietor or his wife to go easy on the oil and salt, pray that they’re feeling accommodating, and prepare to go mouthfuls without pausing for air.

4.      Apply vinegar liberally

Then again, in my world, there’s no such thing as too much vinegar, only those who decide to dunk their food in soy sauce instead. They’re probably the same ones who stopped reading as soon as the word “rat” popped up. The rest of us can take comfort in the fact that magical noodle algorithims don’t exist. Luckily, magical noodle shops do.

Henan La Mian Noodle Shop
Changle Rd (near Fumin Rd)
Shanghai, China

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 10:19 am and is filed under Shanghai.