Cold Comfort — Learning to Love Asia’s Chilled Noodles

 

In traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisines, the belief is that warm foods are most harmonious to the body system, and avoid disruption to the constitution. Otherwise, the chi (bodily energy) is thrown out of equilibrium. Based on this philosophy, main meals are warm or hot. Even desserts and appetizers are never ice-cold; only cooled or moderately chilled. It remains fashionable in Asian restaurants to consume hot or warm water (to the horror of Westerners who prefer to down Asian food with iced water or Coke).

The anomaly in this whole philosophy must be its cold noodles. Popular during summer, Japanese noodles are eaten from a bed of ice and dipped into a chilled sauce. Korean cold noodles sit in a bowl of beef soup taken straight from the fridge. The Chinese version is sometimes called liang mian (cool noodles) and has the greatest variety. It usually comprises cold noodles smothered with a cool or cold thick sauce. Ice-cold vinegar sometimes accompanies the dish.
 

Harmonious or not, this offering remains a unique aspect of Asian foods. An acquired taste, they are divine to the gourmet’s taste buds. For the uninitiated, it is never too late to start.


                                                           Korean cold Noodles
 

Chilly Chilli

The Korean version matches thin noodles (made of wheat, buckwheat, sweet potato) with clear beef soup and a hard-boiled egg. Add mustard, white vinegar and chilli paste to taste — the soup turns a screaming red tone. Taken straight from the fridge, the soup is both cold and spicy — and amazingly, the beef flavour comes through more robustly than in a piping hot dish.

What gives the dish (or mul naeng myeon) a creative twist are its pear slices. Their fragrance gathers the layers upon layers of texture and taste — piquant, icy, full-bodied, sour and a touch of astringency — to a satisfying conclusion of sweet and crunchy. The dry version (bi bim naeng myeon) is less impressive, the noodles clumping together if not taken straightaway.

A variation is cold kimchi noodle soup. The hot version, I find, masks the true taste whereas the cold version properly allows the tongue to explore the potpourri of flavours. Another version uses cold soya bean soup which can be flavoured with salt or sugar according to taste.

The essence of cold noodles is its texture set against the backdrop of cold soup. So totally satisfying is the feel of noodles on the tongue that added meats become inconsequential. Often, novices pick their way through the noodles to look for the meats — but, as in all things new, a change in mindset is required. A rap on the head by a well-meaning aficionado may just do the trick.

Cold beef noodle soup is available at:

Korean Restaurant (Pte) Ltd

277 Orchard Road

Specialists’ Centre #05–35

Singapore

This 31-year-old Korean restaurant — Singapore’s first — has always been at the same location and also serves authentic barbecued bulgogi and fried glass noodles. One of Singapore’s best Korean restaurants.

Cold dry beef noodles are available at:

Han Fung Korean Restaurant

16 Cheong Chin Nam Road

Singapore

This recently opened restaurant has a Korean chef and specialises in barbeque items.

    On the Rocks

There are no frills to this classic Japanese offering. Just buckwheat or soba noodles on a bed of ice and a cold dipping soup. No meats or fish to distract the taste buds. In this dish, more than any other Japanese item, lies the key to appreciating the plainness of Japanese cuisine. I was forced to confront this question when I first tasted this dish 20 years ago: What the heck is going on here?! Where is my ketchup?

Plain food, when taken a few times, educates the taste buds quickly. In the modern world of lazy cooking and fancy fake flavours, one gets numbed by the overuse of soya sauce, oyster sauce, pork lard, chilli and coconut. Take away these condiments and the tongue feels unaccustomed to the joys of 
plain foods.

But the clarity and character of cold noodles are unmatched even by haute cuisine. The Inaniwa (rice flour noodles) is silky smooth and gently resistant to the bite. Its initial blandness discloses levels of taste through further chewing. The cold dashi dip (flavoured with chopped ginger and sesame seed) complements and never intrudes.

The green tea taste in soba noodles is even more evocative for being so elusive. One chases and loses that delicate aroma amid the sting of wasabi stirred into the dip. The experience is almost a dance ritual ... one eats more to try and capture some form to the taste, which seems to slip away and one takes in bite after bite with growing anticipation, again and again. At this point, nothing else matters, not one little bit — you know then that addiction has set in. Inextricable 
(I promise you).

Keyaki

Pan Pacific Hotel

7 Raffles Boulevard

Singapore

The restaurant also serves other first-rate fare such as grilled scallop in a creamy egg-based sauce, and marinated squid in rice wine and soya sauce accompanied by boiled okra and radish. Helmed by Hiroshi Ishii, Executive Chef, for over 10 years, this is one of the best Japanese restaurants in Singapore.

Ice and Nice

One of the most inventive cuisines is Chinese food. So when the Chinese try their hand at cold noodles, expect variety and innovation (and occasional disappointment). This item is in fact not always cold — sometimes it is cool and other times, it comprises warm sauce or gravy poured over ice-cold noodles, or cold sauce over hot noodles.

A popular Shanghai version is cold noodles smothered with warm pork-and-chive sauce. The noodles are then dipped in ice-cold vinegar for contrast. This is a down-to-earth dish, with a homemade taste to it.

A variation is dry noodles coated sparingly with peanut sauce tinged with sesame oil and chilli. The minimal sauce avoids any cloying effect and is contrasted with julienne of carrot, cucumber and tofu spread generously over the noodles

Not all dishes work out well. A disappointing version is the cold la mian with sweet plum sauce and crushed peanuts. The sauce is fragrant but one-dimensional in its sweetness. The thickness of the sauce binds the slightly chewy noodles into a viscous mass. The crushed peanuts do little to leaven the lumpy effect. This item would be much improved if a thinner sour plum sauce is used instead, and diced carrots and water chestnuts added for crunch and sweetness. A touch of black vinegar would have perfected it.

The notable thing about Chinese food is its lack of pretension, even in its haute cuisine. Generally, though, taste and texture are supreme while presentation is secondary. Appearance being less important, Chinese food sometimes seems haphazardly put together, belying its quality. This is particularly so for the humble noodle dish, where the noodles huddle untidily with other ingredients in a bowl. (Quite unlike its Japanese counterpart which requires careful layering of locks of noodles in lacquer boxes.)

In spite of some ill-conceived concoctions, cold noodles remain integral to Chinese cuisine. It is this spirit of constant innovation that makes the food fresh and exciting most of the time as well as near-catastrophic at other times. To shut your mind to all that is offered is to therefore foreclose access to a part of the pith and soul of this cuisine.
 

Pork-chive cold noodles are served at:

Old Shanghai Restaurant

31 Smith Street

Singapore

This restaurant, which has a Shanghainese chef, serves exquisite fresh soy beans with Xing Qua — a blending of mild with bland to become a totally cleansing taste. It also offers the classic Shanghainese dessert, dumpling in osmanthus wine and fermented rice soup. The latter has a mix of sweet, salty and sour flavours which succeed and overlap one each other in kaleidoscope fashion — changing with each spoonful and seemingly in a different order each time.
 

Cold noodles in peanut gravy are served at:

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao

3 Temasek Boulevard

#B1–027

Singapore

This restaurant also serves salty-sweet crispy eel, a Shanghainese specialty. A tour de force.

Cold La Mian with sweet plum gravy and crushed peanuts are served at:

Noodle Hut

B1 #54–55

United Square

101 Thomson Road

Singapore

The Shandong chef at this restaurant is excellent at pulling fresh noodles (hence la mian or hand-made noodles created by pulling). But the cold noodles are a newly created dish and not traditional mainland Chinese fare.

Cold Ban Mian with ham and sesame sauce is served at:

QQ Noodle Shoppe

B1 #57–59 Oscars’ Food Court

United Square

101 Thomson Road

Singapore

This dish is a Singapore creation and not traditional mainland Chinese fare.

Jeffrey Lee