The Legendary Noodle House is bringing old school hand pulled noodles and dumplings to the masses in the West End. I first saw one of the owners here on Bob Blumers Food Network Canada show Glutton For Punishment where Brock Li~the gentleman I mentioned was charged with teaching Bob with becoming an expert noodle puller in a week, it was a great episode and I was pleased to know he opened up shop on Denman street bringing a change of noodle dishes that are different from all the Ramen, Udon and Pho places in the neighborhood.
The space is filled by an antique wooden waterwheel and bobbing Chinese lanterns. Past a beaded curtain, the compact space is furnished with dark wood tables and benches imported from China. Red silk cushions accent the seats. Other ancient’s include wooden tools and garlands of firecrackers decorate the walls. By the open kitchen where the Master Chef stretch’s noodles you feel like your sitting in a noodle house far away in China.
I’ve had a couple great meals here before I started doing photography and blogging, the place is memorable for me for a couple personal reasons with awesome experiences and dinners that I thought I’d show you what my favorite dishes here are.
This is there House Chrysanthemum Flower Tea, it’s $3 a glass and is pretty interesting, it’s a very floral green tea with goji berries and other interesting things that I’m not familiar with!
These are the pan fried pork and chive dumplings, yo have the option of just steamed or pan fried if you want. The filling is nice and juicy and seasoned beautifully, the dumpling wrapper is crispy on the pan fried side and tender with just the right amount of give on the steamed side. I really enjoy these and they’re a nice change from all the gyoza I eat.
You get the traditional soy dipping sauce that come with dumplings but every table has a condiment set to jazz up your dipping sauce.
This is a dish that I had the first time I came here~Gan Ban Mien, it’s minced pork with black bean sauce and diced mushrooms, you get your choice of thin,thick or flat noodles, I prefer thin noodles but have had it with the thick ones~it was really hard to eat with the larger size ones but it’s just a personal thing. The sauce is kind of loose~on the thin side but it’s enough sauce for all the noodles, the mushrooms are diced a big larger than a small dice so you know when your eating one and they don’t get lost in the minced fried pork. There is also some Asian greens in the dish and some broccoli. It’s one of those dishes where you have to mix the sauce and the noodles together, the noodles are softer than Italian pasta and the meat sauce is the real star of the plate.
The scallion pancakes with peanut dipping sauce weren’t as much of a hit~the peanut sauce had the consistency and tasted just like melted smooth peanut butter and that’s it, the pancakes were crisp and definitely tasted like green onions, for $4 it was an inexpensive lesson in what I like here.
Finally they have Xiao Long Bao or XLB pork soup filled dumplings and they are damn good here!, they were $9 I think for 6 and when you order them your warned that they take 15 minutes to make, I order them right away and by the time I’m done with some of my other meal they have become the perfect temperature to eat~if you eat them right when they come to your table you will get a major burn in your mouth. When your break the dumpling skin in your mouth you get a flood of warm broth and a nice nugget of pork, I noticed a star anise flavor slightly, they’re a classic delicious dish that everyone should try at least once in your life.
