Kuai An La Mian Hand Pulled Noodle fka Eastern Noodles

A few weeks ago, a brief online conversation with James over at The Eaten Path concluded with him explaining to me that his favorite hand-pulled noodle place was Eastern Noodle.  I was intrigued; in my research (ie, reading other people’s blogs and casually mentally filing away names for later eating), I’d heard of many places but not Eastern Noodles.  And I <3 when there’s a place that may be not everyone’s heard of but is really good and I should try.  So I jotted down the address and headed out on a cold night to meet up with Spicy Ninja to check out this place…

…and promptly got lost.  This place is on the side of the Manhattan Bridge, away from Canal Street, away from like, everything… it was a bit terrifying to me to walk around alone until I found Spicy Ninja, and then we walked around in the dark together but still terrifying.  Thankfully, James responded immediately to my scared texts that I was lost, and with a bit of his guidance, and a lot of praying, we found… Kuai An La Mian Hand Pull Noodle where Eastern Noodles used to be. 

After a bit of grilling of the workers there in Mandarin (Spicy Ninja, not me; my Mandarin is limited to “bu yao la” [don’t want spicy] and “xie xie” [thank you]), they swore the chef was the same, but the owners had changed hands.  This confused me a bit, since I’d thought Mr. Gao of Eastern Noodles was both owner AND chef, but whatever… let’s get on with the food, shall we? 

Spicy Ninja was hungry I guess, and suggested we add another appetizer to the meal.  Ummm, I forget what this was, but it was a specialty something or other… basically, flat, very flat wontons in a weak broth.  I ate one and then passed on the rest. 

James had mentioned the AWESOME spicy house-made chili sauce on every table, and then hastily added that it wasn’t for me, as I don’t eat spicy.  I was quite goofily pleased that he’d remembered my preference, but his raving description – ‘toasted, slightly nutty, awesome, so good’ – drove me to try a little bit.  I was even more pleased that I could have a little bit (like, very little, but enough) and taste the nutty notes, and agree just how awesome this chili oil was, without crying.  Spicy Ninja gave it a thumbs up as well.

He ordered the house hand-pulled noodles which came with an egg on top.  I know he liked the broth, mentioning how much deeper in flavor it was than Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles (which we both said was WEAK), and did not complain about the noodles at all. 

For comparison’s sake, though they didn’t offer them fried on the menu, I requested fried dumplings, which took a long time to make… and when they came out, we saw why.  These were fried hard. 

Ummm, tasty, but not the greatest.  I didn’t like how hard they were fried and still like Lan Zhou’s fried dumplings the best thusfar, though the chili oil here added a nice lil kick to my dumplings (I schmeared on the teensiest bit – enough to taste it, not enough to make me cry).  Mmm.  Almost all better. 

As for me, I forgot about my pork-nugget-filled fishball quest, and ordered the beef ‘stew’ hand pulled noodles.  The beef was good, chewy bits the way it’s meant to be, tender and fragrant. 

And the noodles were delicious, with a deeply flavored broth to accompany them.  Great chew to them, and just… good stuff.  I liked the place enough, but I don’t know about enough to return at night when I’ll have to walk by the underside of the bridge all scary and alone again. 

Yvo says: Pretty good stuff, I just hate the location.  I think I still prefer Lan Zhou, though that chili oil actually gives Kuai An a slight edge.  Hmmm, will have to go back and try both again to get a better handle on which I like more 🙂
recommended… but for lunch, because that area is damn scary after dark