Nouilles de Lan Zhou

I love G & D supermarket in Chinatown. Actually, it's probably my favorite: they have everything and it's clean. Oh and after speaking to 3 people, I usually get someone that speaks chinefrish (chinese-french-english, duh) that can tell me where I can find something that three other Asian grocery stores don't. Point is, it rocks. Other point is that on the main level, Nouilles de Lan Zhou is cookin' up a feast of hand pulled noodles, beef and spices! Just my cup-o-tea!

We were lucky to get a seat because the place is quite tiny! I'd say around 20 people can sit comfortably. It has beautiful lanterns right on top of the escalator bringing you down to the supermarket and little ones all around the room. The 'noodle-pulling station' is right up front with a large window so that passers by can see the gifted men (I've only seen men doing it there...) pull dem noodles. It's pretty spectacular and while I was waiting for my friend, I looked for like 5 minutes without a clue of how they actually get the noodles to such a small size from a pile of dough. If anyone knows this secret, please contact me ASAP.

I had the medium sized beef soup. The small one would have been enough! The one I had resembled the size of a large salad bowl and the large one, that our next table neighbours had, was HUGE! I'm thinking, fruit punch at a wedding party huge. Oh and they don't give you a spoon, they give you a tiny ladle! Just to make you feel like a tiny person (well, I always feel tiny but this was somethin' else)! The colours were B-eautiful! I just wanted to jump in there and frolic. Oooor... something else that wouldn't burn me to the third degree. Mmmmmkay.  

What's fun is that you can pick the width of your noodles. And yes, that counts as fun for me! I asked the waitress which one is most popular and had that one (my friend thought they were too big). The broth was very tasty: spicy (they ask you if you want some heat in there), tangy, and it just warmed up my insides. Green onions and fresh mint and coriander added that freshness I like in any dish and another level of flavour. Let's just face it, coriander and mint is just THE best herb mix you can get! The daikon was actually quite amazing in there and added some crunch! The beef was OK: in my opinion, it lacked seasoning, rendering it a tad bland. 

Service was quick and efficient (give me ONE example of non-efficient service in an Asian resto). We had tea in a matter of seconds and our soup in less than 8 minutes (why 8? because I just like that number... SEE, I AM half Asian!). We didn't get water glasses though and had to finish our tea to use our mugs for the water that was on our table. That was a bit bizarre.

And now, the scores!

Food:7.5

Service: 6.5

Yep, Imma gonna go back and try all the different widths of noodles. Now THAT's a life goal right there!