Biang! Biang! You're Fed

Biang biang mian, a.k.a. you po che mian at Xi'an Famous Foods, Flushing

[This article has also been posted in my Full Noodle Frontity blog]

"Biang Biang" noodles are the stuff of folklore. Not because of the dish itself (though it deserves to be legendary) but because of the very name. The word "biang" is a Shaanxi localism not found in any modern Chinese dictionaries, famous for its complexity. It is written with 57 strokes, and pity the poor sign-maker that has to paint it twice. No one knows for certain where the name originated, but the most plausible guess is that it represents the sound of the noodles being slapped against the work surface when being made. This theory is advanced by Xi'an Famous Foods' Jason Wang in this video. Biang Biang noodles, being "as wide and thick as belts" are also famous for that reason as one of the "ten strange wonders of Shaanxi." But don't look for "Biang Biang" noodles on your menu; although phonetic substitutes like 棒棒麵 (bàng bàng miàn) or 梆梆麵 (bāng bāng miàn) may sometimes be used, according to Wikipedia, the dish is most commonly listed on menus outside of Shaanxi as you po che mian (油泼扯面).

You po che mian, roughly "oil-sprinkled torn noodles" are wide wheat noodles tossed (or stirred) with chili oil and some or all of: bean sprouts, crushed garlic, chili flakes, cabbage, and cilantro. The noodles are made by tearing wide strips of noodle dough in two lengthwise, rather than iteratively pulling them to thinness as done with "hand pulled" noodles (la mian). Traditionally they were supposedly made more than an inch thick and a meter in length, but fortunately are found in a more manageable size nowadays. Biang biang mian/you po che mian is an excellent hot weather dish, hard to find even in China outside of Xi'an. If you're lucky enough to be in New York, though, head for the nearest outlet of Xi'an Famous Foods for the excellent version depicted in the photo at the top of this page.

The Now Bao: Four Postmodern Pork Buns

A year ago, I knew little about gua bao, the Taiwanese steamed clamshell buns stuffed with savory meat. When in New York my mind would be set on their distant cousin, the rou jia mo found at Xi'an Famous Foods in Flushing, the split-open pan bread with yawning maw stuffed with an explosive mixture of lamb, cumin and jalapeños. Then came another New York visit and the ritual of treating my daughter to a trendy, but always ethnic, restaurant meal as a reward for use of her apartment. This time it brought us to Momofuku Ssäm Bar. At Momofuku you have to try the "pork buns" the buzz went, and so we did.

The pork buns you get at Momofuku Ssäm Bar are not your father's pork buns and maybe even not your father's gua bao. They were envisioned by one David Chang, a Korean-American who has parlayed a large cooking talent, hype, and a sense of location, location, location into a mini-Momofuku empire, with his signature pork buns as a touchstone at each location. Chang's venues charge a momofukin' fortune (sorry, couldn't resist) for their offerings, and his pork buns have been taken note of both by imitators with dollar signs in their eyes and by other cooks who feel challenged to make something better or more authentically Taiwanese. The spawn of Momofuku's pork buns dot the haute Asian Fusion landscape; collectively, they involve a more or less traditional folded-over steamed bun, pork belly of some provenance. and various approaches to spicing (generally including sweetness). I've had occasion to sample three notable successors as well as Chang's original, and here are my reflections.

From the start, David Chang's pork bun is an odd duck. Or pig. Or both. A couple of slabs of slow-cooked pork belly, along with scallions and pickled cucumber are placed in a bun which has been slathered with hoisin (haixian) sauce. The intent was apparently to combine the trendy excess of pork belly (the culinary gift that keeps on giving) with the luxe experience of eating Peking Duck. I'm not opposed to sweetening the meat, being married to a Shanghainese of some coooking skill, but I found the use of hoisin sauce for this purpose a bit jarring. Just what the hell was I eating? Not only was this gustatory head-fake a bit uncalled for, it was also dearly bought. At $9.00 for two smallish buns it fell off the value scale, according to my felicific calculus. (But I'll leave the ranting about Momofuku's prices to others.)

One who seems challenged to one-up rather than imitate David Chang is Eddie Huang, the Taiwanese-American chef and former lawyer who founded Baohaus New York: Fresh off the Boat. Arguably in the same talen league and even brasher than Chang, Huang has also just opened the more ambitious Xiao Ye, the second outpost in what may be his own mini-empire (the Momofuku for the rest of us?) Huang skyrocketed to fame with his gua bao selections (cited as Best Bun in New York by New York Magazine). His take on the pork belly gua bao, The "Chaiman Bao," became his most popular item and incidentally launched a transcontinental controversy which is yet to be resolved. Eddie's Chairman Bao uses a generous hunk of pork belly (mine seemed leaner than Momofuku's) which has been "red cooked" in what I recognized as traditional Shanghainese style, made Taiwanese by being covered with with crushed peanuts and red sugar. Pickled mustard greens and cilantro add to the complexity. Not only did I appreciate the fuller symphony of flavors and textures, I found Baohaus' bao a better value, $4.00 for a palpably more generous portion of leaner meat.

A few months after Eddie Huang's baos, including the Chairman Bao, propelled him to casual food stardom, a food truck called "The Chairman Bao Truck" began serving gua bao on the streets of San Francisco. The Chairman Bao Truck was a concept which sprung full-blown from the head of a company called Mobi Munch (who later claimed to never have heard of Eddie Huang and his Chairman Bao). According to SF Weekly, Mobi Munch was founded "to offer turnkey infrastructure and development planning to the growing wave of gourmet food trucks." The founders, veterans of the chain restaurant industry, tried unsuccessfully to interest several local gourmet street food vendors in their service, then came up with the Chairman Bao Truck and populated it with a chef-operator named Eric Rudd (from Minneapolis, but with some local cooking experience). As might be expected, the mercurial Eddie Huang went ballistic over the use of the Chairman Bao name. I've shared his anger, but am trying not to aim it at the hapless operator, who is caught in the middle.
The affair will end in a sporting, if not completely amicable way with a bun-off between the two enterprises in September in San Francisco.

I caught up with the Chairman Bao Truck's pork bun last Friday night at Off the Grid at Fort Mason Center. It was the cheapest (at $2.95) but also the smallest of nouveau gua baos that I'd tried to the moment. It contained grilled pork belly, pickled daikon and pickled sweet onions. It was more discreetly spiced (NO hoisin sauce) and, though texturally monotonous, a well-behaved disciple of Momofuku's pork buns, though not as interesting or as satisfying as the Baohaus version. On a previous visit, when they had no pork buns on offer I tried the meatball and the tofu buns, and I'd actually recommend the tofu bun of the three.

The last of my four samples, encountered barely two hours ago, came from the opening lunch service of Spice Kit, a new San Francisco Financial District venture which looks like a winner. Fred Tang's gua baos are truly on the tiny side (indeed, they are listed on the menu as sides) and are $2.95 for one or two for $5.00. But the mighty mites, so round, so firm, so fully packed with grilled pork belly deserve to be upgraded in size or quantities to mains (which, for the record, includes Banh Mi, Ssam and salada). What hoisin sauce was present (and the menu claims it was there) kept a discreet distance from my palate, letting the flavor of pickled cucumber and scallions come through, and the firmer texture of the grilled (rather than slow-cooked) pork belly made for a nice contrast to the steamed buns. I made a meal out of my two mini-buns by adding an order of not particularly memorable ginger slaw and amazing house-made lotus chips. Who knew lotus root could taste so good?

Overall, as is probably is clear from the above comments, I prefer the gua bao from Baohaus NY for its flavors, textures, value and attitude. But I also have to give a nod to the porky munchies at Spice Kit, certainly my surprise of the week so far, and I wouldn't toss the pork buns from Momofuku or The Chairman Bao Truck into the compost barrel if they were handed to me. But to tell the truth, if you laid out all four next to one of Lao Liang's rou jia mos at the Golden Mall, hmmm......

Xiao Long Bao Mecca's Faded Glory

Note: an abbreviated version of this post originally appeared in the blog of the Asian Art Museum.

The steamed dumpling known as xiao long bao, described so evocatively by Olivia Wu on the Asian Art Museum's website, is synonymous with Shanghai, and for generations of Shanghainese eating xiao long bao was synonymous with a visit to one particular establishment, the Nanxiang Mantou Dian (Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant). Here, in the historic Yu Garden area of Shanghai, in a second-floor dining room overlooking the nine-turn bridge and the mid-lake teahouse of blue willow China pattern fame, whole feasts are made from nothing more than stacks of dumpling-filled bamboo steamers, accompanied by small bowls of a thin soup.

According to local lore, xiao long bao were created by Huang Mingxian, in the Shanghai suburb of Nanxiang, around 1861. Huang owned a pastry shop and also hawked large steamed buns in a nearby classical garden. It was a competitive business, and Huang, with his pastry-making skills, came up with the delicate, thin skinned xiao long bao to distinguish his wares from the other vendors’, creating an instant sensation.

Their fame spread beyond the confines of Nanxiang, and in the year 1900, a relative of Huang’s named Wu Xiangsheng brought them to Shanghai, taking over an establishment named Changxing Lou. He perfected the delicacy, renamed the restaurant the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, and booming Shanghai introduced xiao long bao to the world.

On a cool, misty day in early April 1992, I had my first ever meal on Chinese soil – a brunch consisting of xiao long bao at the Nanxiang Mantou Dian. My host Daisy (she’s now my sister-in-law) decided that the quaint snack shop that had hosted the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Fidel Castro was a suitable introduction to Shanghai, and it is testimony to her judgment that I have been xiao long bao-mad ever since. The timing of our visit there was fortunate, for when we attempted to return three weeks later we found it closed for an extensive remodeling and reconfiguring as a more tourist-oriented enterprise. The dining area was expanded from a single room to three on two upper floors, and a takeout window added on the ground floor, and therein lies a melancholy tale; it's become obvious to xiao long bao aficionados, including yours truly, that the quality of The Nanxiang's XLB has fallen off significantly since that time.

The fall from grace of the Nanxiang Mantou Dian's xiao long bao is particularly noticeable in the thickness of the wrappers, especially when compared to the creations of the new standard bearers like De Long Guan, Jia Jia Tang Bao and Shan Wei Guan (see my earlier Xiao Long Bao Report Card). My theory is that the takeout window is the culprit here. When you order from the takeout window, your dumplings are unceremoniously dumped from a steamer into a paper boat, and of necessity are made with industrial-strength wrappers to avoid breakage from this rude treatment. The veritable xiao long bao factory on the ground floor (which you can observe through the windows) also makes the XLB for the main dining room on the second floor, so it's not surprising you are getting takeout-grade dumplings there, too. The more expensive third floor dining room has its own xiao long bao chefs, but even there the offerings seem to reflect both lowered expectations and a horror of breakage, coming with wrappers that are more delicate than downstairs but still thicker than they were in the glory days. My rule of thumb is that if at least one in a dozen doesn't break under a too-casual lifting, the maker isn't pushing the envelope (or the wrapper,as it were), and depriving you of the real xiao long bao miracle.

The Nanxiang Mantou Dian is now owned by a holding company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and has added additional branches in Shanghai and more than a dozen franchises in other Asian countries. Although xiao long bao connoisseurs will warn you that its dumplings no longer meet the gold standard the restaurant itself established, locals still revere the Nanxiang as the Mecca of xiao long bao and flock there to jockey for tables; the street-level takeout window, where the dumplings are still a proletarian $1.80 for sixteen dumplings, draws hour-long lines.

Lanzhou La Mian Part II

In an earlier post, I documented my love for the Lanzhou Zheng Zong Niu Rou La Mian shops which can be found all over Shanghai (but especially the one on Hainan Xi Long). As promised, Here is a bit more of the science and history of this saving dish.

Making hand-pulled noodles requires an exceptionally supple dough; in practice this is usually achieved by the addition of kansui (jiang shui, or 鹼水), an alkaline solution of potassium and sodium carbonates, or a powdered base for same. Historically, however, the noodles were actually made supple by kneading lye from wood ash directly with the wheat flour. According to this article, "lye-kneaded wheat noodles" have been found in only three places in the world: Lanzhou, Gansu province, China; Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Okinawa. This practice probably was developed in China and introduced to the other two venues by Hakka travelers. Lanzhou is the only place in China where the practice persists. There, the lye is derived from burning mugwort grasses (peng cao) in a hole and extracting solidified rock-like mugwort ash (peng hui , 蓬灰) by a dripping method. The traditional use of peng hui can be seen in this video.

Lanzhou beef noodles as we know the dish is said to have originated with Ma Baozi (马保子,1870-1955), a member of the Hui nationality, in Lanzhou at the end of the Qing Dynasty. He first sold his noodles of the street, and achieved such fame fame for thier tastiness that in Lanzhou they became known as "Ma Baozi Beef Noodles." In 1919 he opened his first "bricks and mortar" shop. Today, there are around 1,000 beef noodle shops in Lanzhou. The traditional characteristics of Ma Baozi Beef Noodles are said to be "one clear, two white, three red, four green, five yellow" (一清、二白、三红、四绿、五黄), a reference to clear soup, white daikon radish, red chili oil, green cilantro and yellow noodles. (The use of an alkali imparts a yellowish tint to the noodles, which use no egg.)

I'm indebted to Sunny's Sohu Blog for the picture of the Ma Bao Zi restaurant at the top of this page. I learned a lot about Lanzhou and the background of Lanzhou la mian from her post. Please visit it for more tempting photos of the restaurant and its wares.

Happy New Year, and another Xi'an Ming Chi update

I've been dilatory in updating my blog, and blame fragmented interests plus a twitter addiction; but I can't let the year end with a new post and a hearty Happy New Year wish.

My 2009 noshing highlights are pretty well covered in the blog and here's the outlook for 2010: First and foremost, if plans materialize, I may be relocating to New York by the end of the year and will have one, two, many Xi'an Ming Chi analogues to discover in its five boroughs. Failing that (or supplementing it, if the plan comes to fruition), I will make a more resolute effort to track down some far-fuing San Francisco and Bay Area diamonds in the rough that I have heard rumours of. And of course, come hell or high water, I will work in at least a month in Shanghai, which calls me, Expo 2010 or no.

Now for the Xi'an Ming Chi update. As readers of this blog will probably have figured out, my favorite hole-in-the-wall for Chinese small eats outside of China is Xi'an Ming Chi, or Xi'an Famous Eats, in a ramshackle basement mall in downtown Flushing, New York. I have previously blogged about it here and here. The photo at the top of this post is of the shop's famous Liang Pi, a cold wheat-starch noodle dish which, as I discovered, is the perfect hot-weathyer lunch.

As of my last visit to New York, Xi'an Ming Chi had opened a second outlet, in the more conventional Flushing Mall food court, with no diminution in the quality of the food. Now comes news of a third branch, opened just this month, in Manhattan's Chinatown. According to coverage by the Village Voice and Serious Eats, the food is apparently up to the standard of the original, and thus presents an option for those without the time or inclination to head out to Flushing, though I can't imagine anyone not wanting to visit this little corner of China. The new branch is at 88 East Broadway #106, New York NY 10002 (at Forsyth Street).