Sinful But Tasy Bowl of Noodles at Suzhou
As we were walking along Pingjiang Road, I was admiring the canals which spread throughout the old town of Suzhou. Together with the ubiqitous tourist boats, there were also cleaner boats which would scoop up any garbage which happens to float along their way. It was an interesting way of cleaning it, but probably the only practical way. On one of the canals, sat a structure which happens to straddle both sides of the canal. It was practically a bridge that became a restaurant.
See the Restaurant In the Background?
The bridge isn’t really a bridge since people can’t really just enter from one end to go to the other. The restaurant was one specializing in noodles which was great for breakfast. There weren’t any people at the restaurant though, probably because it was still early. My friends ordered their noodles which I thought was pretty ordinary. I ordered something which caught my eye. I didn’t really know what it was at first even though I ordered, it was called Stewed Meat Noodles 焖肉面. When it came it was probably one of the tastiest noodle dishes I’ve ever had. The bowl had a what appeared to be pork tonkotsu which is basically a fried slab of pork.
Inside the Deserted Restaurant
But the best part was this solidified piece of pork belly. I think what they did was they boiled the pork belly until it was extremely soft and melt in your mouth and they refrigerated it, or froze it to solidify it, fats and all. Orders will be sliced off the main piece and dumped in the soup leaving it to soften with the hot soup. The result was a very sinful but very tasty bowl of noodle. I couldn’t get enough of the noodles that when I got back to Shanghai, I had another bowl of the same. I learned later on was that the dish is a specialty of Suzhou.
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