vip in the city

Sheng Wang noodles

For once, I didn’t have to rush back to the office after lunch, so we took the opportunity to venture a little farther in our eating adventures — east and south of Chinatown’s historic core, to the Fujianese-dominated quarter. We’d made a couple of noodle-inspired trips to these streets before, and in this cold, a bowl of some much-lauded spicy beef noodles seemed like just the thing. It was my first midday, mid-week jaunt to Super Taste, and I was surprised to find the noodle shop teeming with slurping diners — not an empty chair in sight.

Plan B brought us across Eldridge and down the stairs to Sheng Wang for the second time. The scene wasn’t much less crowded there, but ultimately we were able to snag the last two seats in the far corner table. From our chairs, we had a clear view into the rather dingy rear kitchen, where the Fuzhou fish balls are churned out en masse, and stacked on trays to dry out under oscillating fans. (Noodles seem to be pulled or cut by chefs in the second, smaller kitchen at the front of the shop.)

We ordered our bowls of the specialty hand-pulled noodles, which arrived in minutes, steaming hot and topped with chunky slices of tender beef, tangy pickled greens and those tasty pork-stuffed yu wan.  (SYB was missing out.)

Are there better places to enjoy a bowl of noodle soup? A recent round-up of the city’s Asian noodle soups in Paper  cited nearby Golden Dragon Restaurant (7 Eldridge Street), in addition to Super Taste and Sheng Wang. And if the Chowhound boards are to be believed, family-run Eastern Noodles, a.k.a. Eastern Authentic Noodle House, is another worthy contender, and located just west on Forsyth – where the shop relocated after departing the noodle epicenter that is Eldridge Street.

There will be other Thursdays.