From Spaetzle to Saimintosoda

Chinese Noodles

Wherever Chinese immigrants spread throughout Asia, they introduced noodles, and every culture added its own local ingredients and flavorings. Without leaving L.A. County, it’s possible to follow noodles around the Asian map to places as far-flung as Myanmar, northern Thailand, and Penang, Malaysia. The best way to discover the subtleties of Asian noodles may be with handmade Chinese noodles because, according to food scholar K.C. Chang, these are what got the Asian-noodle ball rolling after wheat milling was introduced in China in the first century. Of the many subtle variations noodles can take — from angel-hair fine to thick and clunky, and with textures from gelatinous to soft — the handmade ones at Dumpling Master are the most basic. Insiders know that unless you specifically request the “special noodles,” you’ll likely get the mechanically made ones. Rolled out like thin pie dough and cut by hand into hefty half-inch ribbons, the dense, wheaty special noodles almost require a knife and fork to eat. Someone with an impeccable sense of timing cooks the toppings: Shrimps are juicy, pea pods snap, pork-chop topping is seared crisp yet juicy, and the soup broths are elegant and deeply flavored.

The chefs at Beijing Islamic in Torrance, and at Heavy Noodling (formerly Dow Shaw Noodle House) in Monterey Park, make their noodles by kneading a thick, football-size dough cylinder and from it shaving elastic noodle ribbons into boiling water. They emerge as rugged, beefy, irregular, wheaty-flavored bands that stand up to the most scorching, ã chile- laced broth, yet bring out the best in a light seafood soup. Originally from the countryside outside Beijing, these noodles go especially well with the lamb so often used in northern-style Chinese cooking. Both restaurants serve them in lamb soups, lamb stir fries and in about a dozen other preparations. At Heavy Noodling look for noodles tossed with chile, with sesame paste or soybean paste, and for seafood ton mein. Beijing Islamic gives the noodles the unappetizing sobriquet of “dough slice,” but never mind, they’re the same fabulous noodles.

Transforming a blob of dough by twisting, stretching and pulling it into a springy coil of noodles has to be one of chefdom’s most miraculous feats. We rarely see it in restaurants, though, for as one demonstrating noodle master responded to David Letterman when asked why he didn’t serve hand-swung noodles at his restaurant, “There’s no dough in it.” We are privileged, then, to have a few places around town that bother to make them. At Dumpling House, customers get a ringside seat to watch a noodle maker ply his art in a window facing the parking lot. The resulting irregular strands are delicious magnets for a Korean-Chinese-style soup that’s intense with dry-chile flavor, and for a rich, dense, brown bean sauce with chopped meat, or for broth loaded with seafood or for half a dozen other flavorings. San Tong in Artesia has virtually the same dishes with handmade noodles, but you don’t get to watch the show. Nor can you see it at Chu’s Mandarin Cuisine in San Gabriel Square. What you will see there are photos of Mr. Chu posing with Arnold Schwarzenegger behind a mound of dough. Chu’s hand-pulled dough strings served cold flaunt their slithery attributes better than anything I know. With chicken, in unctuous peanut sauce or with seafood, they’re indeed a rare noodle treat.

Always reliable, if not showy or flashy, Sam Woo Barbecue and Noodles and Luk Yue use commercially made but good-quality noodles of every variety: Cantonese-style egg noodles (thin-style or linguine-shaped), e-fu noodles, flat rice noodles and rice vermicelli — all done just about any way you want, whether it’s with barbecued pork, roast chicken, stir-fried veggies or in soup — all with lightning service at multiple locations. Favorites to try: beef-stew noodles with won tons, shredded chicken and salty cabbage; beef-and-egg chow fun or chow mein; satay-beef chow fun; shredded duck with salty cabbage; and the many types of egg or rice noodles in soup.

Thai and Burmese Noodles

Most Thai places serve at least half a dozen different noodle dishes, and usually they’re the same half-dozen. Thais, though, like everyone else in Asia, have an intense noodle addiction, and the restaurants that follow show off the hundreds of ways they appease them. The Sompunrestaurants may be L.A.’s only two sources for kao soi, a northern-Thai specialty sold on nearly every corner in every neighborhood in the city of Chiang Mai, and one of my top-three noodle dishes in the world. The creamy, chile-and-lemon-grass-flavored coconut-milk broth is shot through with a touch of curry, laced with chewy thin egg noodles, and spritzed with sweet car-amelized garlic. A swirl of deep-fried egg noodles to crush over the top comes alongside. Sompun does a fabulous job bringing on the traditional garnishments that make the dish expand and soar — a battalion of chile condiments, plus pickled cabbage, chopped red onion and wedges of lime.

Duck noodle soup is another scarce but wonderful Thai discovery. Rodded, in Hollywood, specializes in duck stew, duck won ton and the duck noodle soup. In the Thai-Chinese manner, it is clear, dark with duck flavor, and rich with underlying notes of onion and soy sauce. The noodles are delicate and eggy. The soup may be ordered with slices of duck (duck stew), or duck wing, or duck feet, or duck liver. And with it you get a little dish of hand-chopped bird’s-eye chiles made into a hot sauce. The dish is simple, a perfect example of the idea that less is more.