While walking down the street, I spotted a sign in a back alley saying they sell biangbiang noodles.

The sign

The character for “biang” is so complicated that even in China they just write it in English. Anyway, it was a chance to try authentic biangbiang noodles, so I couldn’t pass it up. The restaurant is called Qin Chuzi: Qin as in the Qin dynasty, and chuzi means cook. It says “pure Shaanxi flavour”, and apparently noodle dishes are a big thing in Shaanxi province. The thing is, Shaanxi is pronounced “Shanxi” in Chinese, and Shanxi province is pronounced “Shanxi” too; in China they tell them apart by tone, but for foreigners just hearing it in passing I can see how it would be confusing.

Illustration

Once I went in, it turned out to be a restaurant, but delivery is the main business. It looked like one guy does all the cooking on his own. There seem to be quite a lot of places like this. And the more a place is like this, the more the taste is guaranteed, so to speak. Even when we ordered several dishes, they came out one after another in no time.

Menu

I thought it would be mostly noodles, but the menu is more varied than I expected.

Menu

They seem to be pushing the youpo noodles? I think.

Kitchen

It really felt like delivery was the main thing.

Biangbiang noodles

When I tried them, they weren’t especially unusual: wide, udon-like noodles. They’re springy and go down easily, and you just mix them well with the sauce. There’s also a chewy feel a bit like sujebi… They’re cheap too, so I think they’d be good as an everyday meal. Given the nature of the noodles, they didn’t seem like they’d get soggy even when delivered. But the sauce was a bit under-seasoned, whether that’s just how this place does it or not. For this much wheat noodle, they could have given a bit more sauce…

I’d wanted to try biangbiang noodles for a while, and having eaten them in their homeland I’m fully satisfied… They look simple, but you don’t get them served like this in Japan or Korea…

Liangpi

Thin noodles, served with bean sprouts. They’d be nice eaten cold on a hot summer day.

Youpo noodles

They said it’s noodles served with hot oil poured over them. Honestly, not much different from biangbiang noodles? It’s just a matter of more or less oil, since the biangbiang sauce had oil in it too… Anyway, this was also fine as a simple meal.

Roujiamo

It’s pronounced something like “roujiamo”, and it’s a kind of hamburger. Something like pulled pork inside a croissant-like bun… It tasted better than I expected. Though it made me wonder whether it’s okay for something like this to be so good at a place where noodles are supposed to be the main thing…

The filling

It sheds so many crumbs that eating it takes some skill, but it’s still impressive that this is a traditional food.

Dumpling soup

I liked that they add plenty of cilantro… The broth is sour like hot and sour soup, but it could have been a bit more sour.

Steamed dumplings

Probably lamb, I think; the flavour is good. This place seems to be good at anything made with wheat flour…

Sauce

Only after finishing did I notice there was a somewhat spicy sauce. It would have been even better if I’d used it more…

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