More Szechuan Dish (美四川) (CLOSED)

It didn’t take me long to return to the purveyors of the greatest noodle dish in New York and keep my promise – I had ròu shào dòu huā miàn (肉紹豆花面) this evening. And it lived up to its promise – a really lovely dish.

What you can’t see below the surface of ground pork, soft tofu (豆花 - dòu huā - literally means "bean flower"), and roasted peanuts is that it’s a deep bowl full of noodles. The broth is spicy but not overpoweringly so, with the barest hint of sourness. There’s just enough of it to keep the noodles from sticking together, but not so much that it becomes a soup. It’s rather like noodles flavored with a delicate má pó dòu fǔ (麻婆豆腐). Works for me!

Delicious as this is, my heart still belongs to ròu shào gān nǎn miàn. Either one, though - or just about anything else they make - is sufficiently good reason to make a special trip to Beautiful Sichuan (the Chinese name of Szechuan Dish is měi sì chuān, or "beautiful Sichuan").

Szechuan Dish (美四川) - New World Mall food court
Main & Roosevelt (enter on Roosevelt), Flushing 11354
718-353-4957
(7 train to Main St.-Flushing)

The greatest noodle dish in New York (CLOSED)

Tonight I ate a noodle dish that temporarily eradicated memories of all other noodle dishes I've ever eaten - it was that good - at Szechuan Dish (美四川), in the food court of the New World Mall. I wrote previously that on my first visit, ròu shào dòu huā miàn (肉紹豆花面 - noodles with soft tofu and pork) had piqued my interest to try the next time. But, for some reason, I skipped right over it this evening and ordered ròu shao gān nǎn miàn (肉紹干煵面 - sliced noodles with Szechuan chili-minced pork and peanut). It is, I think, the greatest noodle dish I've ever tried.

The picture does not begin to do justice to the magic of this dish. First off, the knife-shaved noodles are the most delicate I have ever encountered. They are positively light, almost lacy. In the bottom of the dish is a sauce of hot oil and spices, and sprinkled on top are minced pork, crushed peanut, and some chopped scallions. It is more than the sum of its parts, and eating it must be something akin to what Nirvana is like.

I was a bit puzzled by the Chinese name of the dish, and my thanks to Miss Audrey Lo for helping me decipher it (okay, for doing most of the deciphering for me). It seems that 干煵面 (gān nǎn miàn) is a type of noodle dish with lightly-fried sauce (apparently dàn dàn miàn (担担面) and my beloved zhá jiàng miàn (炸酱面) are both varieties of gān nǎn miàn), and 肉紹 (ròu shao) refers to the addition of minced pork.

And for the first time that I can remember, I had to know the name of the person who made this dish. His name is Yáng Kūn Qián (阳坤乾), and, as I noted before, is from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. This man can COOK.

Divine as those noodles were, they weren't quite a meal, so I decided try the hóng yóu chāo shǒu, wontons in red hot oil (or "Wontons in Roasted Chili Sauce" - 紅油抄手). By now not unexpectedly, the greatest version of these I've tried. They're quite similar in style to Little Pepper's - the red oil is practically a broth - but with MUCH bolder flavors. The wontons are meaty and HUGE... I've been served smaller dumplings than these.

Next visit I'm definitely going to sample that ròu shào dòu huā miàn. I swear.

Szechuan Dish (美四川) - New World Mall food court
Main & Roosevelt (enter on Roosevelt), Flushing 11354
718-353-4957
(7 train to Main St.-Flushing)

Traditional Hunan Style (天天湘上) (No longer recommendable)

Until the intrepid scoopG wrote about it on Chowhound, I had completely missed the existence of the recently-opened Traditional Hunan Style (天天湘上) on a crowded side street in Flushing. His review made me want to try it immediately, and now that I'm back from Texas, I finally got my chance. It is a worthy destination for lovers of spicy food.

As scoopG points out, its Chinese name 天天湘上 (tiān tiān xiāng shàng) is a play on the common phrase 天天向上 (tiān tiān xiàng shàng), or "improve every day". 天天 means "every day" or "day-to-day", but the key pivot syllable of the restaurant's name, 湘 (xiāng), is the name of the largest river in Hunan and is a sort of shorthand way of referring to the province.

Most of the dishes we ordered made me want to try most of the rest of the menu immediately. The only one I wasn't crazy about was the first of their "steamed spicy dishes" category, Steamed Spicy Shredded Pork, Squid, Chicken (水煮三絲 - shuǐ zhǔ sān sī, or "water-cooked three shreds). "Steamed" is a misnomer, here: the dish is meat and vegetables cooked in a spicy broth. The preparation is almost identical to its Sichuan couterpart (the name 水煮 (shuǐ zhǔ) is identical), minus the Sichuan peppercorns. It was good - shredded pork, chicken, and squid boiled with cabbage and bean sprouts - but it's not one of my favorite Sichuan preparations, either. I guess I had hoped it would somehow be more different.

The White Jalapeño Chinese Preserved Meat (白辣椒腊肉 - bái là jiāo là ròu) is pretty sensational. Dried, salted pork belly is sauteed with bell peppers and white, dried hot peppers, and it tastes even better than it looks.

Salt Egg with Shredded Potato (鹹蛋黄土豆絲 - xián dàn huáng tǔ dòu sī) reminded me at first of a one-dish breakfast. Potato shreds with vinegar is a dish I've enjoyed many, many times, but eschewing the vinegar in favor of salted egg yolk gives the dish a mellowness and richness that was somehow unexpected. I absolutely loved this dish.

There are several endearing mistranslations and typos on the menu... my favorite is "praised pork". I hope they never change it.

Open until midnight every day.

Click here for an update on this restaurant.

Traditional Hunan Style (天天湘上)
135-23 40th Rd., Flushing 11354
718-321-2788
(7 train to Main St.-Flushing, 1 block south on Main, then right on 40th Rd.)

Gui-Rock Korean BBQ (구이락)

When warm weather hits - and it was in the 80's here in Texas today - so does my craving for mul naeng myun (물냉면). I decided to try a Korean restaurant that somehow looked promising, and I'm very glad I did.

Shortly after ordering, the manager brought over a delicious amuse-gueule of ever-so-lightly breaded fried fish slices... a delightful portent of what was to come.

The naeng myun was excellent, although one might argue that it's a little hard to screw up. Still, quality fresh ingredients always make a difference, and this naeng myun was as good as any I've ever had. Fine buckwheat noodles in an ice-cold beef broth, with slices of beef, cucumber, daikon radish, and half a hard-boiled egg. Add a bit of mustard and a dash of vinegar and you have hot weather nirvana.

But what was really extraordinary here was the array of banchan. I don't think I've ever had such good banchan anywhere (okay, I've never been to Korea). Every Korean restaurant worth its salt makes all their banchan in-house, and this is most definitely no exception. The cabbage kimchi (top right) was among the tastiest I've had - full, well-rounded flavor, rather than the overly vinegary kimchi one so often gets. The sliced fish cake (top left) was almost light and palpably fresh. The almost-standard potato salad was creamy and - once again - almost light. A sort of seaweed salad (inside 11 o'clock) was delightful, as was the dish above it, pea pods pickled with hot red pepper - a new one to me, and one I'd like to have again very soon.

Prices are reasonable, although if specific numbers are important to you, you might double-check prices with your waiter. The menu I was handed listed the price of mul naeng myun as $4.00 (!)... when they brought out that beautiful spread you see above, I was prepared to pronounce this just about the greatest food bargain I'd ever found. But when the check came, the price was a closer-to-normal $8.95.

Since this place does call itself a BBQ, I should probably mention that the barbecue at the other tables looked fine, if not life-changing. But in order to be life-changing, they would have to have wood embers over which to do the barbecuing, which they do not.

Gui-Rock Korean BBQ (구이락)
2625 Old Denton Rd., Carrollton, TX 75007
972-242-1717
website

Lal-Qila Indian Food Palace (MOVED)

I don't know what's going on with Asian food in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but I definitely approve. Poking around the Chowhound boards - always the best source of recommendations when in unfamiliar territory - I found a write-up of a place called Lal-Qila Indian Food Palace that sounded interesting. It was.

"Indian Food Palace" is a bit of a misnomer, as this is definitely a Pakistani restaurant, and, fairly predictably, halal. They do serve several Pakistani versions of dishes usually thought of as Indian, and I ordered one of them. Goat korma was just fantastic, full of complex and robust flavors, and goat meat that was actually tender. It resembled not at all most kormas I've had, which tend to be much lighter in color and creamier. As you can see (hopefully - once again, dim lighting makes decent pictures almost impossible), this wasn't like that.

In the basket is a rumali roti, the perfect delivery medium for korma sauce. Rumali roti means, literally, "handkerchief bread". It's an apt name for a big, thin, floppy flatbread, served folded up, very much like... a handkerchief. Much more fun - and unusual - than naan.

Flavors here are all more complex, more assertive, and generally fresher than those of Pakistani food that I'm accustomed to in New York. I arrived just as they were tearing down their Sunday lunch buffet, and they were kind enough to let me taste a few dishes before they went back to the kitchen. Beef nihari - a long-simmered spicy, complex curry dish originally from Old Delhi, then brought to Karachi after Pakistan's independence - seems to be the house specialty. It's pretty great. There was also a fascinating ground beef dish, also from Karachi, called "seekh fry". It's chock-full of indecipherable (to me, at least), earthy flavors... rather amazing, in its way.

I'm definitely going to get there BEFORE 3 p.m. one Sunday before leaving Texas.

Lal-Qila Indian Food Palace
3044 Old Denton Rd., Carrollton, TX 75007
972-389-0900
website

Mỹ Lan

Because of my great love for good Vietnamese food - and my deprivation of it in New York - I was almost as happy to learn of a sizable Vietnamese community around Fort Worth as I was to learn of a Lao community. There are a LOT of Vietnamese restaurants in the Fort Worth/Haltom City area.  I won't, unfortunately, have time to try all of them, but Nhà Hàng Mỹ Lan (nhà hàng means "restaurant") seems to have the best reputation, and I'm guessing it's deserved. It's great - the best Vietnamese food I've had since I was in Albuquerque a couple of years ago.

Although not particularly adventurous, I have to try the chả giò (fried egg rolls) whenever I try a new Vietnamese restaurant. Mỹ Lan's are as close to perfect as I've ever had - the minced meat-and-vegetable filling had great texture, and they were perfectly fried. Served with a plate of lettuce and various herb leaves to wrap them in before dipping in fish sauce.

Cơm chiên dương châu is Vietnamese for Yang Chow Fried Rice, but I don't think I've ever had ANY kind of fried rice as superbly flavorful as this - thanks, in large part, no doubt, to the beautiful addition of thin slices of Chinese sausage to the standard roast pork and shrimp.

One of my favorite Vietnamese dishes naturally involves meat, and I tend to try it at every place I go that serves it. Bò lúc lắc is often translated as "shaking beef", a somewhat mysterious moniker for a dish that consists essentially of cubes of stir-fried marinated beef. Apparently, "shaking" refers to the motion one makes with the wok or skillet while frying the beef... lúc lắc means "baby's rattle" (bò means "beef"). A lot of restaurants in the U.S. make this dish with filet mignon - Mỹ Lan uses flank steak. It's just as good, if not better: flank steak has a lot more flavor than filet mignon (it also means they can only charge nine bucks for it). Delicious - it's simplicity is its greatness. Served with a side dish of a lovely sweetened garlic and black pepper sauce for dipping.

On a subsequent visit, the chả giò were just as perfect as the first time, and a trio of meat and shrimp items served over bánh hỏi rice noodles were all excellent.

From right to left: chạo tôm (grilled shrimp paste, or shrimp surimi, surimi being the processed fish paste with which the Chinese make fish balls), thịt nướng (grilled marinated pork), and tàu hũ ky (grilled tofu skin stuffed with shrimp paste). All tasty, but the grilled pork was extraordinarily good. This is just the kind of dish where having real Vietnamese around the kitchen makes a HUGE difference. The balance of flavors from the marinade was - there's no other word for it - perfect. This was made by people that really know what they're doing.

Gà xào xả ớt - a stir-fry of chicken, chili, lemongrass and bell peppers - was lovely. Moist, tender, and flavors, once again, were perfectly balanced.

Closed Wednesdays.

Nhà Hàng Mỹ Lan
4015 E. Belknap St., Haltom City, TX 76111
817-222-1471

Angelo's Bar-B-Que

My first gig in Fort Worth was over 10 years ago, and Angelo's Bar-B-Que was at the top of the list of places I wanted try. All these years later, it is - along with Babe's - my favorite return destination here.

Angelo's is an institution in these parts, and it's classic Texas barbecue. Down here, beef - not pork - is king, especially brisket (sliced or chopped). And the sliced beef is excellent. Be sure to ask for it fatty! (The kind of restaurants I like in Texas all seem to have terrible lighting for picture-taking, so apologies.)

Plates come with beans, potato salad, and cole slaw.  The sides are fine, but not worth spending much time on.

Although beef reigns supreme, the pork ribs are surprisingly good - a truly worthy alternative. Barbecued chicken, on the other hand, not so much... the white meat is, predictably, dry. The pork loin is nice and moist, but not particularly exciting. If you like salami, though, that's a winner:

My favorite item here, though, is the sausage. Just get a pound of these marvelous barbecued hot links to go - trust me. Here are some on a loaded baked potato:

Closed Sundays.

Angelo's Bar-B-Que
2533 White Settlement Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76107
817-332-0357
website