Battle of the Brooklyn Noodle Soups

Yes, I know this is my second post in a row involving noodles - what can i say, I love mian tiao. I've made a few trips to the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn over the past few weeks. One time I was in the neighborhood picking up some groceries (ok, I was stocking up on rice), and I just happened to drive by a hole-the-wall noodle shop serving hand-pulled noodles. Hand-pulled noodles are made by stretching and twisting a solid chunk of dough into strands of thin and delicate noodles. It reminds me of a game of cat's cradle, except no string or children are involved. Just dough and old Chinese men. The noodle shop I'm referring to is called Lan Zhou Hand-Pulled Noodles and is located at 60th street and 8th ave.




























Aside from the beef and noodles, the soup also includes spinach, cilantro and a spoonful of preserved vegetables. The noodles are soft and chewy at the same time. The broth is flavorful, without being too salty. I am generally not a fan of preserved vegetables, but this time it added extra flavor to the soup.

My second trip to Sunset Park was caused mostly in part by a raving review of a Yunnan Noodle Shop I read on Chowhound. I had Yunnan rice noodles (mi xian) once in Bejing and I was curious to see if this place was truly authentic. Yunnan is a province located in the southwestern region of China. Their noodles are made with rice flour and are whiter and plumper than your average Chinese noodle.














Yunnan Snack Shop, another hole-in-the-wall restaurant located at 49th street and 8th avenue, similar to the Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles set-up. The soup looks pretty much the same too, but the flavors and textures are completely different. The Yunnan rice noodles are much chewier and kind of hard to swallow. I had to swallow a lot of them whole because I was having trouble biting down. This broth is also very spicy and more salty. Interesting flavor, but I'm not sure if I'll go back again. I definitely prefer the hand pulled noodles over the Yunnan rice noodles.

UK Noodle Invasion

Wagamama, the British Noodle Shop chain, is opening its first US location on April 23rd! The first restaurant will be located in the touristy Fanueil Hall area of Boston. Another one, situated in Harvard Sq., is slated to open this summer.

Boston has always been lacking in quality Asian food, Wagamama is exactly what the city needs! Havard Square especially doesn't have a great Asian restaurant - sure you've got Penang, Pho Pasteur, a handful of easily forgettable Thai and Japanese places and that random "pan-Asian" place that used to be where Finale is currently located, but it's definitely not the place to go when I'm hungering for some noodle soup. If I could spend a Saturday afternoon in Harvard Sq., casually perusing Jasmine Sola, the Urban basement, Le Foot AND have the ability end it all with a steaming bowl of ramen or a plate of veggie katsu w/ curry, I would be in heaven. It could change my whole perspective. On life.

I equate Wagamama with my year abroad. It was where I had one of my first and last meals in London. I loved the long communal wooden tables and benches, the crisp white plates, the bursts of steam coming from the open kitchen, the noise of constant chatter, soup slurpage, and cutlery clinking against the plates. Ohhhhhh MEMORIES. That's all we have in this world. The fruit juices are excellent - not too sweet or tart. I remember the carrot juice being particularly thirst quenching. The Yasai Katsu Curry is one of my favorite dishes on the menu - slices of breaded eggplant, sweet potato and squash, fried and topped with Japanese-style curry.

I hope they'll open a Wagamama in New York. This city could use another restaurant that serves $12 bowls of ramen, right?

Click here to read the full menu.

Wined It Up

Some sort of Italian wine competition happened in New York recently. Most of the winners cost from $50 - $80 a bottle, but this one, the Lis Neris Pino Grigio only costs $20 a bottle. According to the Gothamist, the Les Neris had "layers of pear, hazelnut, with soft toasted wood notes". Run out to your nearest wine shop and buy a bottle to toast the beginning of spring!

Food for Thought

I received my adorable little The Economist 2007 Facts and Figures handbook yesterday in the mail. Thought I'd share with you something interesting factoids that you might not have known to be true.

- Best air quality score: Uganda
- Worst air quality score: Bangladesh
- Highest concentration of ozone: Belize
- Highest life expectancy rate: Andorra (can someone tell me where Andorra might be located?)
- Highest military spending (as a % of total GDP) - North Korea, at a whopping 25%
- Most expensive office space rental: London (west end neighborhood) at about $2000 per square feet. Damn! New York (at about $575/square feet) seems cheap in comparison.
- the US doesn't even place in the 40 countries with the highest % of women in the workforce

Maybe some of these will come in handy for quiz night!

Eggs and Polenta

I stole this recipe straight from the New York Times, and although my plating doesn't look as pretty as the picture from the newspaper, I still thought it tasted pretty good. The whole meal essentially cost about $1.50.

It's a combination of cheesy polenta, a fried egg and sauteed swiss chard. (I used to be a swiss-chard-a-phobe because of the swiss chard that the Smith dining halls cooked up were always kind of gross, but it's actually pretty good.) This meal is great for breakfast or dinner.

To make the swiss chard, just sautee the leafy greens w/ salt and garlic in olive oil for 5-10 minutes, until the leaves are soft.

To make the polenta:
Combine coarse corn meal (available in the Goya section of most supermarkets) and water in the ratio of 1:6...holy crap this is like the perfect GMAT math question: the ratio of cornmeal to water is 1:6, if 4 more cups of water are added to the mixture, the ratio is now 1:8. How many cups of water are in the original mixture? Yeahhh....can somebody please shoot me and put me out of my misery?
Anyhoo where was I....right, so combine the water and cornmeal, with a pinch of salt. Boil over medium heat, stir the mixture constantly so it doesn't all clump at the bottom. After 10 or 15 minutes, the mixture will thicken up and start to look like polenta. Add a few handfuls of grated parmesan or cheddar, what the hell, add blue cheese if you want to! It'll probably taste nasty though. And voila, you have made polenta.

Fez

It was a cold and blustery night. Trash bags were being blown around by the wind, similar to the that trash bag scene from American Beauty. Prospect Avenue was dark and mostly deserted. I felt like I was in a scene from a film noir movie. Too bad it wasn't foggy, otherwise it would have been perfect. Fez's storefront is tiny, it's very easy to walk right by the restaurant if you're not looking too carefully. I stepped into the restaurant and was immediately engulfed in warmth and delicious smells. The walls are painted a dark orange/reddish color and adorned with Moroccan-style lamps and wall sconces.

I started with the Harira soup:














Harira is a tomato-based soup chock full of lentils, chickpeas and long-grain rice. It came piping hot and was the perfect way to warm me up.

Next came the Tilapia Tagine:






(Where was the tall conical lid that come with tagine dishes?!)






The fish came with tomatoes, carrots and potatoes in a light and tangy lemon sauce. The fish was incredibly tender and flakey. Although the flavors of tagine weren't incredibly strong and more subtle, it was still very satisfying.

Every time I have Moroccan food I think of the meal I had during my trek to the desert near Marrakech. We were staying in bivouacs in the middle of a desert, our tour guides (who looked about 18) pull two bunsen burners, a big old pot, raw carrots, potatoes and onions out of their rucksack. I was a bit skeptical - can a decent meal be made without a kitchen and decent cooking utensils? The tagine our tour guides made was ridiculous - it was probably one of the best meals I've ever had. I ate until I thought I was going to throw up. Anyywayyys...sidebar.

Fez is a great choice if you're looking for a light, but filling meal. I liked the Harira soup so much that I decided to make it myself! It's a really simple soup, you basically throw all the ingredients into a big pot, stir and simmer. Just like the story of Stone Soup! Perhaps if the Israelis and Palestinians could join forces to make Harira together, each taking turns stirring the soup...oh look, the Iranians are here to add their own contribution to the soup....and oh my, is that Kim Jong Il here to add some kimchi to the pot....and of course good 'ol Condi Riz-ice is there overseeing the whole operation....then there would be peace in the Middle East.

Recipe for Harira Soup:

Ingredients -
2 16 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 can of chickpeas
1 cup of lentils
1/2 cup of long-grain rice
1 can of chicken stock
4-5 cups of water (depending on if you like your soup thick or thin)
a few bunches of flat leaf parsley
2 medium-sized onions
salt

Directions -
Sautee the diced onions for a few minutes, until the onions become translucent
add the drained chickpeas, sautee for another few minutes
add the can of of chicken stock
After the chicken stock has come to a boil, add the salt, 2 cans of tomatoes, water, lentils, rice, chopped parsley to the pot
simmer for 45 minutes - 1 hour, or until the lentils are tender
add additional parsley at the end, salt to taste
Stir in few tablespoons of lemon juice give to give it an extra tang

The original recipe I used called for saffron threads, but i didn't use any since it is way too expensive. The soup came out fine without the saffron.