There is no shortage of places to find a steaming bowl of noodles or dumplings in China, and it is hard to find bad fare at these sidewalk shops that are usually just large enough to seat a few customers.
Look for the green signs
However, since my first visit to Beijing, one type of establishment has been at the forefront of all other purveyors of street food in this impossibly large country: the Islamic noodle house with its green-awnings.
They are easily recognizable by the Arabic writing and emerald hues on their signage, as well as by the little white hats that they men working the tables wear. I have no idea if these are chain establishments or just coincidentally decorated alike, but I have found them all over the country and always featuring the similar aesthetic theme.
Making them exceedingly available to non-Chinese speakers is the fact that their menu items are usually displayed in picture form on a wall. When I entered one last night in Shanghai, I was asked by the server what kind of dumplings I wanted.
Assuming he meant what kind of meat, I pointed to a picture on the wall of a large, proud, triumphant, hooved, horned mammal standing in a verdant pasture. It looked like a yak, but I wasn’t sure. He nodded, yelled to the cook and moments later brought out a steaming bowl of broth full of amazingly spiced dumplings with some kind of red meat tucked inside.
The really amazing thing about these noodle shops is that they all seem to make their own noodles fresh and in-house. They are some of the best noodles I have ever had anywhere, and in and of themselves make a meal.
I found my brand
I will be in China for the next three weeks, so I will be doing much research on the various street food opportunities I find. This research will entail me constantly striking out to try new places, and it will be a struggle not to fall back on these Muslim noodle shops.
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