Comments (0) Best Upscale Dan Dan Noodles - 2013
Lukshon
The version of dan dan mian, the classic Sichuan street noodle dish, that Sang Yoon makes at his Culver City restaurant Lukshon resembles less an iteration of the dish you'd find anywhere in the SGV than it does a high-tech experiment. Which is kind of what it is to Yoon, who says he's tinkered with this dish more than any other, subjecting it to repeated experimentation in his test kitchen (dehydrator! vacuum chamber! rotary evaporator!). The sauce is built with Kurobuta pork, black bean paste, white sesame paste, chicken stock, house-made prickly ash oil (right), and God knows what else as of this writing. The noodles, made specifically for the restaurant, are pliant and chewy and tangled up under the intimidatingly rich sauce, laced with a happy amount of heat that Soon probably has achieved thanks to his very own algorithm. Is it authentic? It's authentic to Yoon, which is all it needs to be. 3239 Helms Ave., Culver City. (310) 202-6808, lukshon.com. —Amy Scattergood
