Hungry Hippo

It has become more and more apparent that every restaurant has its own pièce de résistance. For example, Oversea Asian has their Young ToFu in curry soup and the Momofuku restaurants have their pork. Some things just stand out.

There are also many ways to find out about these highlights. Much of the time, some skilled internet reading will have one anticipating certain dishes even before setting foot in a restaurant. Lately, however, I’ve been employing a different method. It combines an underused skill of mine with my interest in food: people watching… while they eat!

This method has finally proven to be wildly successful.

A few months back, I visited Moon House for the first time. This tiny restaurant is one of the two Shanghainese restaurants that flank the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory on Bayard Street. The other restaurant is Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, which is notable in it’s own right.

While my first visit to Moon House was decent (the food was not bad—the value was amazing), I noticed, right after we ordered our food, every other table in the restaurant was busily inhaling plates of ropey stir-fried noodles. The noodles themselves didn’t look outstanding; they looked like most decent plates of noodles, lightly glistening with a good amount of oil with a good meat/veggie to noodle ratio. The look on the faces of those eating the noodles, however, was more telling. They looked content and satisfied—the exact facial expression I would want to have after eating a plate of noodles.

Unfortunately, we did not order these noodles, which is why that first meal only qualified as alright. I did, however, keep yapping to my dining partner that there was something special about these noodles.

These mystery noodles at Moon House were mentioned on and off for a few months, and finally, we returned for sole purpose of identifying this noodle dish on the menu and eating them. Luckily, I was in the company of an individual who speaks Mandarin. He quickly described the noodles and we were directed to a dish with the inauspicious title of “Shanghai Lo Mein (with Pork)”.

The noodles were stir fried in combination of vegetable oil and pork fat, and beautifully coated with a deep brown sauce that was satisfyingly savoury, yet sweetly complex with every bite. Matchstick sized pieces of pork, finely chopped suey choy (AKA nappa cabbage), and the occasional sliver of Chinese-style pickled vegetables were distributed evenly throughout. It was all made better by the taste a hot wok imparts on food.

The noodles themselves were in a category that I’d never come across before—that category being “I’d beat up your grandma if she stood in between me and the noodles”. They were Shanghai-style wheat noodles, with the approximate dimensions of the pointed end of full sized, plastic Chinese chopsticks. The texture of the noodles were unforgettable: a cross between being elastic and al dente, they gave back a little of what you gave them with every bite.

These noodles will keep me coming back. They’re the type of thing I’ll daydream about (and drool over, in my weaker moments). And, the best part about this dish? It cost $4.95 (tax and tip, not included).

Labels: Chinatown, noodles