Personally, my favorite place to go is Shantou Beef Noodle. This shop has been in business for 37 years, and their beef noodles stand out for being light and fresh, which don't leave customers feeling overstuffed.
I recall on one occasion meeting with a friend, a curator from Hong Kong, at Yuanshan MRT station around 4:30 p.m. He said he was a bit hungry, even though we were planning to have dinner with a few other people three hours later, so I took him to the nearby Shantou Beef Noodle shop. We ordered one bowl of original-style noodles for around US$1.50 and another bowl simmered in soy sauce for about US$2. My friend was in utter delight with what he ate, commenting how the soup base seemed brighter, maintained a peppery fragrance and the aroma of ginger, with just the right touch of herbal flavoring from the satay sauce.
I knew exactly what he meant. The soup is very light and fresh, fitting for the hot and humid temperament of a subtropical region, which differs from the more-often-than-not encountered beef-noodle taste of fermented soybean paste. Also, the beef is cut into smaller cubes, so one doesn't eat too much, leaving the appetite open to indulge in other things later. This is simply the best kind of feeling. The greens in the soup is spinach--the most complimentary vegetable to beef noodle--and is usually water spinach, though ordinary spinach is also used when in season during the winter.
The owners of the noodle shop are the Lus, a father-and-son team who always greet their customers with a confident smile. They prepare the noodles in an orderly fashion, and watching them throw in just the right amount of noodles and cutting the beef with precision is a true demonstration of the shop's high standards of quality. This is indeed my top criterion when searching for a good food stall or eatery: observation before gustation.
The small lot across the street from the stall is Jinghua Park, donated by a local family named Yang some 30 years ago. Now surrounded by two-story townhouses, the park looks like a miniature and simplified version of the Place des Vosges in Paris' Marais district. I remember planning to go to the shop with my friend just as it would be opening at 5 p.m., but we arrived a little early and decided to take a walk in the park. That evening, after enjoying a tranquil stroll, we relished the opening round of beef noodle soup as some of the shop's earliest customers.
--The preceding is a translation of the "Small Dishes, Great Tastes" column that appeared in the Nov. 21, 2005 issue of the Chinese-language Business Weekly.
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