Tag Archives: Noodle Soup

Lunch at the Kalguksu Alley in Namdaemun Market (Seoul, March 2023)

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I will be taking a bunch of students to Seoul for five weeks next February/March (we’ll get there after five weeks in Bombay). In preparation for this trip, I recently spent a week in Seoul, visiting sites, checking out possible accommodations and group activities; and, of course, also eating.

Though the missus was born in Seoul and lived there till the age of nine (at which point she moved to Los Angeles with her family), we have not been to Seoul as a family and nor had I ever been there before myself. I was a little intimidated by the thought of navigating the city by myself for a week but quite predictably ended up having a blast in the periods of time before, between and after my appointments. I walked an average of 7 miles a day—a lot of it to markets where I ate. One of these markets was Namdaemun Market—I ate lunch there on three consecutive days. Here is a look at my second lunch, eaten on a Friday in the market’s famous “Kalguksu Alley”. Continue reading →

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Magic Noodle (St. Paul, MN)

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Magic Noodle, which opened on University Ave. in St. Paul (the Twin Cities’ true Eat Street) last summer, represents a small step in the evolution of the broader Chinese food scene in the Twin Cities. The local Sichuan scene is already pretty strong, with a few restaurants that would be viable propositions in much larger metros with larger Chinese populations. But beyond that there’s been little: our dim sum scene hovers around the edge of dismal, there’s no real Cantonese food of quality or any other regional Chinese restaurants for that matter (that I’m aware of at any rate). And so to have a decent hand-pulled noodle shop open up feels like a big thing. Yes, similar noodle soups are available at restaurants like Grand Szechuan as well but it’s good to have a specialist. Based on our meal at the start of the month I wouldn’t say that they’re very much more than a decent hand-pulled noodle shop at the moment but I’m not complaining too much. Continue reading →

Pho Everest, Again (Lakeville, MN)

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We have a long history of making poor decisions when it comes to bad weather and driving long distances for food; and so the morning snow on Saturday did not keep us from sticking to our plan to drive to St. Paul for lunch at iPho followed by a trip to the Science Museum. There wasn’t much snow falling from the sky and the friends we were planning to caravan with said roads were clear in town and we figured the highway would be fine too. It didn’t take too long to discover, however, that the highway was not fine. Slick conditions meant a bunch of cars spun out and in the ditch and a mile or so from the exit for Lakeville traffic was slowed to a crawl. We called our friends in their car and we all decided it was a good idea to not drive to St. Paul even if traffic opened up by the time we got to the exit. Well, it didn’t and so we got off and decided to go to Pho Everest in Lakeville instead.  Continue reading →

TeaWood (Hong Kong, December 2018)

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I’d said I had only two food reports left to come from my Hong Kong trip but I lied. I’d planned to post a single compendium of my smaller meals and quick bites but there were just too many pictures to resize. And so I’ve split them into two posts. This one will give you a brief look at TeaWood, a Taiwanese restaurant; the next will cover my random dumpling eating etc.

Like pretty much every successful restaurant in Hong Kong, TeaWood is a chain. The majority of their branches are in Kowloon. As it happens, I had spent the entire morning in Kowloon that day but the branch I ate at is in Central, very close to my hotel. I’d had a very large breakfast—or rather three of them, beginning at Law Fu Kee, going on to the dumpling restaurant next to them and then finishing with an egg tart across the street. This is why I did not eat lunch in Kowloon. But after walking for almost 8 miles I was ready for a bite when I got back to Central; and as that branch of TeaWood is right next to where I got off the Mid-Levels escalator at Wellington St. I felt it was futile to resist.  Continue reading →

Mak An Kee + Samdor (Hong Kong, December 2018)

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What could be more Christmas than an account of eating wonton-noodle soup in Hong Kong? You’re welcome!

We come down from the hipstery heights of Soho to the small noodle shops that feed hungry office goers from the skyscrapers in the IFC area. On my first day in Hong Kong I had back to back bowls of wonton-noodle soup at Tsim Chai Kee and Mak’s Noodle, and a few days later I had back to back bowls of wonton-noodle soup at two other restaurants in the area: Mak An Kee and Samdor. Mak An Kee is, I believe, an offshoot from the original Mak’s family operation. Samdor is unrelated and I came across it while looking on Open Rice for other noodle soup places in the vicinity. Here’s a quick look at both.  Continue reading →

Kau Kee (Hong Kong, December 2018)

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On this trip to Hong Kong I did on multiple occasions something I hate to do at restaurants: I stood in line. I hate to do it not because I am too good to stand in line (though that’s true as well) but because I am too impatient to stand in line; plus when you’re in a foreign city for a limited number of days, spending a good chunk of your time in line for food doesn’t seem like the best use of it. (I don’t count waiting for a table at dim sum in this context as that’s a given unless you’re at the rare place that takes reservations.) But if you’re in Hong Kong and you like Cantonese food you’d be silly not to eat a lot of noodles in soup, and at a lot of the places that sling it you’re going to have no option but to stand in line. Thankfully, at none of those places will you have to stand in line very long. As I noted in my review of my lunches on my first day at Tsim Chai Kee and Mak’s Noodle, when you make it in you’ll be seated at a small table with many strangers and you’ll expected to order quickly, eat quickly, pay quickly and fuck off quickly so that they can keep the line moving. And so it was at Kau Kee. It was the longest of the lines I stood in (well, until Tim Ho Wan on my way to the airport a week later) but it moved rapidly*. And when I got inside and got my bowl of noodle soup, I was very happy.  Continue reading →

Tsim Chai Kee + Mak’s Noodle (Hong Kong, December 2018)

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I leave Hong Kong today and so it’s time to finally post my first food report. I’ve been eating like a maniac ever since I arrived—literally, since I arrived: the first thing I did at the airport was eat dumplings at Crystal Jade. As I’m traveling alone on this trip—and as my friends in Hong Kong have busy lives—most of my meals during the days have been eaten solo. And one of the genres that I have been hitting up a lot is one that we could not really do as a family on our last trip in 2016: small establishments that dish out variations on noodle soup and wontons. It’s hard with a family because you invariably have to queue up, then you get seated at very cramped tables, probably with strangers and you’re expected to order and eat quickly, pay and fuck right off so the line can keep moving. With small kids all of this is a challenge. On my own though it’s been very easy.   Continue reading →