Last night we walked a little further from the hotel for dinner. The students took me to a little restaurant that specializes in food from Xian.

When we walked into the restaurant we saw a large table where a noodle maker was hard at work.

We did not see the whole process, but here he is rolling out the dough for the noodles.

After the noodle dough was at the right thickness it was rolled up and sliced into strips.

Here you can see a box full of cut noodles. If you look closely you can see that the size is not uniform and that some of them are a little raggedy.

These noodles are always handmade and cooked while fresh. The little difference in noodle size gives different texture to the cooked noodles as they are not all cooked exactly the same.

I really liked the decor in the restaurant. The wooden benches made it feel homey and there were some nice pictures and hangings on the wall. There was also a series of figures of a man making noodles along one wall.

This picture is a bit out of focus as my colleague was rapidly mixing the noodles with the spicy soup. The secret is to get some good coating on the noodles while they are still hot.

I didn’t try this with my noodles, but this is most of the noodles from the bowl. You can see how long the noodles are.

Some of the students had a dry form of the noodles. You can see the different vegetables and spices that were mixed with the noodles. I also really like the bowl that they are in.

My soup was really good, but also a bit messy. My shirt got splatted with broth a few times 🙂

If I go back again I will probably try the dryer version of the noodles.

I also had a little hamburger with the meal, but that will be the subject of another post someday.

Steven