Posted 17 October 2006 - 05:18 AM
World Tong also has cold vinegary chicken feet, a nice alternative to the spicy ones.
Today I tried a great hand-pulled-noodle shop in Manhattan, but it took a little daring. Twice before, during off hours, I'd been to basement-level Sheng Wang at 27 Eldridge, with its friendly family staff but shooting-gallery ambience. While I loved their pasta, I wasn't thrilled with the duck or beef-knuckle soups. They tasted heavily stewed, and came with distracting seaweed. I wanted lighter soups.
First today, I had delicious pho w/ tendon and tripe at Pho Bang on Mott, to give myself a broth baseline. Then I walked east to Eldridge, planning to try one or two of Sheng Wang's competitors. I stopped once at a store to buy some air-dried, pressed duck legs to cook on Thursday. (I don't know how yet, but I'll figure it out.)
But on Eldridge I found a roadblock on the path to soup: my own shyness. All the hand-pulled-noodle shops on that strip of Eldridge near the bridge, including Sheng Wang, were narrow spaces with little to zero English on their window or wall menus, and absolutely packed with a crowd I'd never found in the authentic Chinese restaurants I've tried these last few years. Whether Anglo-friendly or not, all my previous Asian restaurants have included mixes of families, blue- and white-collar workers, seniors, and both men and women. Today, Eldridge's lunch-hour noodle territory was a roaring world of people who were not just mostly Chinese, but also mostly younger, mostly working-class, and mostly male. I did not feel comfortable in my dorky college T-shirt and cutoff jeans and messenger bag and pink skin, and I felt like I'd be even more of an intruder than usual if I'd squeeze into the rare empty seat at a bench or table, at this hour on this street.
Finally I settled on Super Taste, across the street at 26 Eldridge. That's only one number off from Sheng Wang. But I picked it after several minutes of wandering up and down the street, after I saw a whole empty table for four, and an English menu in the window, and two punky couples softening the tough-worker vibe. No tea! But the "house special noodle" soup for $6 tasted fantastic, a savory broth piled with beef either in gelatinous slices or tenderly clinging to marrowy bones; soft tripe; cleansing and bright greens; all topped with a freshly fried egg. I'll be back there tomorrow for another bowl of something else to try.
Super Taste's noodles were just good, past al dente -- more fun to watch than eat. As I slurped at and plucked goodies from my soup, I looked past the the black-suited, black-hatted man who'd soon sat across from me. Maybe he glowered gangsta-style at everyone he met. Far behind him through a doorway and past a home-grade fridge, a cook in a bandanna kept swooping his arms high and low to stretch what must have been a five-pound loop of noodles, which grew longer and longer till after several pulls he tore them up and tossed them behind him into pots to boil. Then he'd start on a new big ball of dough. Only a couple of tables had this view. If you looked just at the noodles lengthening and then resisting his movements, it looked like he was stretching and slowing time itself.
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Abbylovi, on Oct 6 2006, 12:47 PM, said:
