Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Shan Xi Magic Kitchen's two kinds of noodles
Hand pulled vs. hand ripped
Hand-pulled noodles with sautéed cumin beef
When the table next to us were told they couldn’t order rice, they decided to leave. “What kind of Chinese restaurant doesn’t serve rice?” they muttered on the way out.
The short answer is: duh, a noodle spot.
The longer answer involves recognizing that Chinese food is not a monolithic cuisine, and that while they do grow and eat a lot of rice in southern China, the northern parts of the vast nation, such as Shanxi province, historically developed dishes around a different grain: wheat.
We visited this Convoy Street restaurant, Shan Xi Magic Kitchen, because it keeps alive the tradition of making noodles by hand. It also offers meat skewers, dumplings, and stir fries, but through a window into its kitchen, diners may watch chefs diligently kneading dough to make noodles, both for soups and plated fare.
Hand-ripped noodles with stewed pork
What particularly drew me in this day is a menu featuring both hand-pulled and hand-ripped noodles.
It took watching a internet videos to understand the basic difference. Each process begins with a lot of kneading and rolling dough until it’s super stretchy. For hand-pulled noodles, it’s rolled into a long, thin noodle that’s pulled into a longer, thinner noodle. That’s folded in half and pulled again into two noodles. Then again into four noodles, then eight, until the original noodle has been stretched and folded into a full serving of dense noodles.
For hand-ripped noodles, the dough is rolled flat, then stretched into a long flat ribbon. That ribbon gets ripped lengthwise to make wide, flat noodles.
We tried the hand-pulled noodles with a sautéed cumin beef ($9.99). They were about the thickness of udon noodles, but more dense with irregular shape. Their exquisite chewiness was the star of the fragrantly spiced dish.
For hand-ripped, we selected “spicy hot oil seared” noodles with stewed pork ($9.59). The wider noodles were softer and less dense, a bit slippery in light oil and chili flakes. The pork had wonderful tenderness, but needed more flavor. I added more chili oil.
With all of Kearny Mesa at their disposal, those customers who left probably found plenty of rice dishes to choose from, probably with more richly flavored food than Shan Xi Magic Kitchen. But if you ask me, they still missed out.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Shan Xi Magic Kitchen's two kinds of noodles
Hand pulled vs. hand ripped
Shan Xi Magic Kitchen's two kinds of noodles
Hand pulled vs. hand ripped
Hand-pulled noodles with sautéed cumin beef
When the table next to us were told they couldn’t order rice, they decided to leave. “What kind of Chinese restaurant doesn’t serve rice?” they muttered on the way out.
The short answer is: duh, a noodle spot.
The longer answer involves recognizing that Chinese food is not a monolithic cuisine, and that while they do grow and eat a lot of rice in southern China, the northern parts of the vast nation, such as Shanxi province, historically developed dishes around a different grain: wheat.
We visited this Convoy Street restaurant, Shan Xi Magic Kitchen, because it keeps alive the tradition of making noodles by hand. It also offers meat skewers, dumplings, and stir fries, but through a window into its kitchen, diners may watch chefs diligently kneading dough to make noodles, both for soups and plated fare.
Hand-ripped noodles with stewed pork
What particularly drew me in this day is a menu featuring both hand-pulled and hand-ripped noodles.
It took watching a internet videos to understand the basic difference. Each process begins with a lot of kneading and rolling dough until it’s super stretchy. For hand-pulled noodles, it’s rolled into a long, thin noodle that’s pulled into a longer, thinner noodle. That’s folded in half and pulled again into two noodles. Then again into four noodles, then eight, until the original noodle has been stretched and folded into a full serving of dense noodles.
For hand-ripped noodles, the dough is rolled flat, then stretched into a long flat ribbon. That ribbon gets ripped lengthwise to make wide, flat noodles.
We tried the hand-pulled noodles with a sautéed cumin beef ($9.99). They were about the thickness of udon noodles, but more dense with irregular shape. Their exquisite chewiness was the star of the fragrantly spiced dish.
For hand-ripped, we selected “spicy hot oil seared” noodles with stewed pork ($9.59). The wider noodles were softer and less dense, a bit slippery in light oil and chili flakes. The pork had wonderful tenderness, but needed more flavor. I added more chili oil.
With all of Kearny Mesa at their disposal, those customers who left probably found plenty of rice dishes to choose from, probably with more richly flavored food than Shan Xi Magic Kitchen. But if you ask me, they still missed out.
Comments