After
having a chat with a friend about my last blog post I realized I
hadn't really fully explained Muslim Noodles. For example, why do we
call it Muslim Noodles? Well, as you may have guessed the owners are
Muslims and members of an ethnic minority, although I'm not sure
which one. If anyone could shed some light on this that'd be great.
I'll just quickly explain this for those less savvy about Chinese
ethnicities. China is roughly ninety percent Han Chinese, but there
are various other ethnic minorities who come from other parts of
China and look a little different to the Han Chinese. There are the
Uyghurs from Xinjiang in the north west of China (it
is, in fact, a semi-autonomous region, similar to Tibet), who, having
read some stuff about there cuisine, I believe are the creators of
the aforementioned culinary delight. I may well be wrong and, as I
said, any information would be great. The amount of Muslims in China
surprised me and their food is almost always delicious, including
many kebab type dishes, stews and barbecue dishes. As you get further
over to the west I believe the food becomes less and less “Chinesey”
and more like something Middle Eastern, as you'd expect when moving
towards central Asia and the various Stahns (Kyrgyztahn boarders
China). Anyway, to get back to the point, and before I meander off on
a geopolitical tangent. the people who make lamian are largely
slightly less Chinese looking and are almost always Muslims, it is a
typical Chinese Muslim cuisine.
The
places I went to in Hangzhou were largely advertised as Lanzhou
noodle eateries. Lanzhou is really in central China, but because so
many people leave in the east in China this is, relatively speaking,
in the west. I'll just take you through some of my favourite dishes,
where the centrepiece is the noodles, but the food that goes with is
often pretty tasty. My personal favourite is tudou niu rou gai chou
mien (too-dough nee oo row guy chow mee en), which means potato and
beef over noodles. There is usually some green pepper and onion in
there, too. There is a certain way they cook it that makes it salty
and delicious and it always comes packing a garlicy punch. However, I
like it because as with most of the other things you can order none
of the flavours become overwhelming and there is a flavoursome
cohesion to every order. Another favourite is xihongshi jidan gai
chou mien (she-hong-shir jee dan guy chow mee en), tomato and egg
over noodles. This one is good if you don't fancy quite such an
assualt of carbs and is a little lighter, however it really will only
fill you up for six hours, as opposed to the eight of the
aforementioned repast. As my vegetarian friend Ed discovered you can
pretty much rattle off a list of any vegetables you want and they
will usually cook them up with noodles for you, but there are always
the pictures if you want to have a point punt. Pleasingly, they
always come with a side soup, usually a clear broth, sometimes with
some greens in (qingcai or ching t-sigh). For anyone who lives in
Hangzhou, I thoroughly recommend the branch on Xin Hua Lu, near the
Feng Qi Lu kou (junction). For anyone who doesn't, I thoroughly
recommend visiting to sample this tasty local cuisine, it's delicious
and probably fairly different to any Chinese food you've tried.
That's enough about Muslim noodles for now, I think some musical
musings might be coming next, although I do have lots of other tasty
stuff to go on about, so we'll just have to see...
A map of China, showing where Lanzhou is.
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