Yesterday afternoon, because Stevie had a car in the city for a few hours, we went on an escapade – to Chinatown in Flushing, Queens. Right where the 7 train ends, there is an entire area of the city that is full of Chinese signs, faces, and strange meat and produce lining the streets. Stevie had scoped out a few places she wanted to go, namely to try steaming pork buns filled with mouth-burning broth, amazing pork and cabbage ramen soup, and the coup-de-grace – hand-pulled noodle soup from Langzhou Handmade Noodles.

This little noodle shop was located at the corner of Main Street and 41st in the equivalent of an underground food court. Stevie’s got a few germ issues which definitely came to the forefront in this cramped but delicious-smelling space full of various food stalls, but she happily overcame them to watch this man knead and pull noodles before our eyes:

He kneaded the dough, pulling it like taffy, until it formed long, thin strands, which then were thrown into a pot with duck bones and delicious vegetables. Stevie even wandered over to touch the dough. This took some effort and miming, since the man and his assistant did not speak English and the shop’s translator had his head down in a corner, but she eventually succeeded in bringing over a small lump of dough for us to play with. The soup was served, steaming hot, in a plastic bowl which we had to share (another phobia that was gallantly overcome).

While sitting and munching through noodles and meat-covered bones, Stevie spotted a green soda can with a strange fruit on it. She tried to ask the lady working the counter what it was – which means we ended up ordering a can to share:

This might have been the best decision of the day. Whatever white gourd is, it tasted like liquid caramel corn, whose chilled sweetness really complemented the soup. We took turns sipping at it until I took a sip and the ominous end-of-the-line slurping sound surfaced – at which point the can was turned over to its rightful orderer. We then got two more to go.