One of my husband's most favorite foods in the world is fresh, handmade noodles. There's something about the chewy texture of homemade noodles that just cannot be recreated once noodles are dried. It's hard to find fresh handmade Chinese noodles in Boston. Sadly, Noodle Alcove, which used to be in Chinatown, closed its doors several years ago. Currently, the only place we know of in Boston that sells fresh, handmade noodles is Beijing Star in Waltham.
In California, fresh handmade noodles are everywhere, and A&J's in Cupertino Village sells both thin and thick homemade noodles. In order to fully appreciate the chewy goodness ("Q" in Taiwanese) of the noodles, I would definitely recommend that you order the fat noodles.
Beef Noodle Soup is like a national dish in Taiwan, and definitely a dish you should order if you are at a Taiwanese restaurant. Typically, beef slices are stewed for hours in a fragrant soy based broth filled with spices such as 5-spice and anise. The resulting dish contains super soft beef infused with the rich flavor of the spicy broth. At A&J's, this dish is special because it is made with fresh homemade noodles.
A&J's is also well known for their "zua bing", which translates to "grab" pastry. It's a multi-layered pancake - the layers are paper thin. You eat the pancake by "grabbing" layers of it off. It's crispy on the outside while the layers are moist and chewy. It's really good! It's sort of like a scallion pancake, but not so flat, and with many many layers.
Stir Fried rice cakes with pork and mustard greens. I love rice cakes, also because of their chewy texture.
It's always nice to order stir fried vegetables to balance out the rest of the dishes. Here, we are enjoy "A" vegetable, which is sort of like romaine lettuce.
Wontons in chile oil. This dish is typically a Sichuan dish, and thus I thought it was only OK here. It was much better at Szechuan Era, where we had gone just a few days ago.
Favorite entrees? Zua bing and the beef noodles soup with handmade noodles.
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