As 2011 clicks down, Jonathan Gold considers the 10 best dishes of the year, a list that reads like a hopscotch through the strip mall neighborhoods and stalled streets of this town. Marrowbones and tsukemen. Stuffed squid and bacon biscuits. Almost makes you hungry.

Dan dan mian is at its best dialed up to 11, reddened with tons of oily chile sludge and zapped with enough fresh Sichuan peppercorns to leave your gums numb for a week.

Read the complete story in Gold's Counter Intelligence, “Let's Dish,” and check out Anne Fishbein's photo gallery. Then maybe get in your car.

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