NOODLE TIME

Growing up in San Diego, I regularly ate steaming bowls of yun tun mian for lunch at the cheap Chinese restaurants scattered throughout University City or Convoy (which resulted in my super-pro shoveling technique as seen above). In Hong Kong, the tiny, delicate “wontons” are stuffed with hefty chunks of shrimp, suspended in a rich noodle-dense soup. All of the magic, of course, resides in the broth, which is enriched with pork bones, scallions, and dried shrimps. Interestingly, the dish’s provenance is northern Chinese (hence my familiarity with it growing up), but it’s become very popular with Cantonese Hong Kong residents, who have adopted the dish to suit their own Southern tastes. I’ve noticed this with so much northern or Sichuan dishes — Hong Kong folk love to take regional cuisine and put a weird hybridic Cantonese spin on it. Just fantastic.