lan zhou handmade noodles

e bway (rutgers/ pike)

website

if you couldn't tell already, derek and i love hand-pulled noodles. but lan zhou is the first place that they hand-pull the noodles to order right in front of you. so you get to see the noodles get slapped against a table and stretched into perfectly formed noodles right before they're thrown into a bowl of boiling broth. the setting is standard hole-in-the-wall, but with the flourescent lighting and dingy surroundings you really feel transported to asia.

i found the dumplings were good, but had a bit too much ginger for my tastes. i ordered my bowl of noodles with tripe and the cook graciously added all sorts of other intestinal delights. quite a lot of offal, but delicious. derek ordered his standard (boring) bowl with beef slices. the broth was rich and sufficiently beefy. pickled cabbage is available in a sketchy-looking plastic bowl on each table (although sketchy didn't stop me from adding a few spoonfuls). it's worth it for the spectacle, but i'm going to stick with my many-meats-special soup and delicious gingerless dumplings at kuai la mian.