This restaurant in St. Paul opened up a month or two ago and people have been raving about how good it is. So, D.Rough and I headed over for lunch to check it out. It’s got a wonderfully designed interior – very authentic Chinese feeling – and you get to watch the chef hand-pull noodles in the kitchen from most of the seating area. Word on the street is that this is the first hand-pulled noodle shop in the Twin Cities, which is a big statement if it’s true.
The menu has a lot of things on it that all sound amazing. You’re given a pencil to check off what you’d like to order. You can either give the server your menu with items checked off, or you can just tell them and they’ll put in your order into their fancy iPad ordering system right there at your table. We probably over-ordered, but we loved it all (and finished it all), so maybe we ordered the right amount, after all.
We ordered a few appetizers, and the first one to arrive was the Sichuan Wontons in Chili Oil. They were six small little dumplings filled with ground pork, and then covered with scallions, peanuts, and chili oil. They were very light and quite delicious. The chili oil wasn’t overpowering and the pork filling wasn’t overly heavy (it helps that it was a small portion in each dumpling). Very good.
D.Rough is always happy to see a Scallion Pancake on a menu, so we had to get one. It’s served in six pieces and with a small dish of possibly rice wine vinegar dipping sauce. Very delicious and we’ll be sure to tell our friends who are also scallion pancake addicts that they need to check these out at this restaurant.
I kept going back to the Cumin Mutton Pie on the menu, so I just decided to order it and see how it was. I loved it. It definitely had some heat (spice-wise). The shredded mutton wasn’t stringy and had a great flavor, helped by the addition of onions and peppers in the mix. It was a little drippy, and I got it all over the table and my pants, but it didn’t stop me from eating the entire thing.
For an entrée, I talked D.Rough into getting Chongqing Spicy Noodle Soup. It sounded magical to me, and I should have been warned by the small red pepper next to the name on the menu. That indicates it’s hot. And it was HOT. If you’re originally from Minnesota and have an aversion to spice, then steer clear of this one. It was really spicy, even after it cooled down, but the flavor in it was excellent. It’s got lots of ground pork lurking at the bottom, covered up by a layer of molten lava… I mean chili oil. With hand-pulled noodles on top, most of them are like 2 feet long, so it’s a very messy dish. So, I found myself whipping spicy oil off my entire face after every bite. But again, it was really tasty!
D.Rough’s decision to order the Garlic Chicken Fried Noodles was the winner of the day. The ingredients were simple (onions and bell peppers), but they made it taste so incredible. The sauce that these noodles were in did have some chili oil, but it was more sweet than spicy. It was great. Again, the two-foot long noodles were a challenge to share and to eat, but eventually we got much better at it. And, this is a dish we would order again and again.
I can’t recommend this place enough (with the caveat that it’s going to be spicy for some Minnesotan palates). It’s fun to watch them hand-pull the noodles and the variety of things on the menu is impressive. The use of chili oil in most dishes reminds me of pretty much every dish that I ate while I was in China, so I feel confident in my use of the term “authentic”. It isn’t like American-style Chinese food, so you’re not going to get General Tso’s Chicken here. But, I truly feel you’re going to love everything you order here.
1 comment:
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