Chicago seems like it’s luxuriating in a golden age of pasta. From Monteverde’s Sarah Grueneberg to Daisies’ Joe Frillman to Cameron Grant at Osteria Langhe, the number of chefs operating at the peak of eccellenza is astonishing. And yet is it really that impressive when you consider that the Chinese were eating noodles long before anyone else—and that, in terms of the vast universe of Asian noodle dishes, Chicago is years behind cities like Los Angeles, Vancouver, or Toronto? Sure, we’re lucky to have the hand-pulled lagman at Jibek Jolu, the fresh black jia jiang mian at Great Sea, the knife-shaved dao xiao mian at Slurp Slurp, and even the mutant “Belt noodle Yibin-style” at Bixi Beer. But compared to Italian-style noodle slingers, the city’s heroes of Asian pasta are fewer and less well-known.
Chicago’s sole other specialist in this regional cuisine—which features lots of lamb and wheat-flour noodles and bread—is Xi’an Cuisine on Cermak, popular for its paomo: lamb soup, thick with torn shreds of flatbread and biang biang mian, ribbony hand-stretched noodles deployed in various soups and stir-fries. They’re much less known for another major regional noodle specialty.
Zhou offers his noodles in nine variations, one stir-fried and served hot, another served cold with warm sesame sauce, another extraspicy, and another tossed with sesame noodles. One is served as a combo with red-braised pig feet, two others with rou jia mo, griddled flatbread sandwiching fatty chopped pork belly or thinly sliced cumin-braised beef shank.
Richland Center food court 2002 S. Wentworth 312-375-3122
