back in early november, it was chinese food week over at eaterLA. they did several articles during the week interviewing chinese restaurateurs in the san gabriel valley including a couple of my favorites JTYH and huge tree pastry. however, it was this article that caught the interest of both me and my brother mike.
and so, one sunday morning, we went to shaanxi gourmet. now, i can't really comment on the authenticity of xian cuisine, but in general the food is good. good flavors. not as spicy as szechuan. they have a wonderful intestine dish. but what i discovered here, are the noodles.
sidebar. anyone who knows me knows that i'm a bit of a noodlephile. i love noodles. all kinds of noodles. to the point that i've made it a goal of mine to learn to make all different sorts of noodles. but, my favorite of favorite noodles, is shaved noodles. basically, its where the chef has a giant block of noodle dough, and with a knife, quickly shaves noodles off the block straight into boiling water or broth. it's amazing. there is nothing that compares texturally. until recently, my absolute favorite shaved noodle was a hole-in-the-wall in philadelphia's chinatown (perfect!), but in LA, it's between JTYH in san gabriel (very finely shaved, not much chew) and mas' islamic chinese restaurant in anaheim (more dense, but great chew).
that is, until i went to shaanxi gourmet. now, they have several different noodles types, and the various noodle dishes each have their own default. but i've only had one type of noodle here because we always ask them to replace it with this noodle. so, in chinese, they call it tsuh mien which translates to a sort of pulled noodle, but to me, it's shaved. it's the default noodle for their lamb noodle soup, which is how we first found it, and it is about an inch wide and very flat. and LONG. insanely long. one noodle will fill your typical rice bowl. and the gluten and texture of it is perfect. we're not sure how they make it.. maybe they really pull the noodle that long then cut it? or they have a ball of dough that the shave around the way you would peel an entire apple? whatever it is, it is delicious. it is so delicious that in the three times i've gone, i've never taken a picture of it because i'm so focused on eating it (but i'll try to remember next time) and i guess it's not technically a shaved noodle, but man is it good.
now, we've had some questionable experiences with the service when we went there, which i won't go into because i don't want to discourage anyone from going, but if you ignore that and are patient and just sort of go with the flow, get the lamb noodle soup, or if you get another noodle dish, ask that it comes with the very wide noodle or tsuh mien, then your mouth will be happy. especially if you're a noodlephile like me.
shaanxi gourmet
8518 valley boulevard
rosemead, california 91770
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