Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle in Aberdeen Centre, Richmond

I had talked about Ramen purists and how they defended venerable bowl of Japanese pork noodle soup.

I tried to garner support from a tiny band of Pho purists to defend with equal gusto the traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup.

I saw a glimmer of hope for the Malaysian Curry Laksa in the effort to be recognized in the company of the big boys in Asian noodle soups.

I am still learning about the promise of the Korean Beef Bone noodle soup and their own proud uniqueness.

It is time now for the Taiwanese Beef Noodle purists not to be out done … to stand up and be counted!

And man was I surprised by the turn out.

For the past few weeks, I had been hearing murmurings about the new Taiwanese Beef Noodle (TBN) house opening in the Aberdeen center. I heard it will be upscale and that it will shake the very foundation of the Taiwanese Beef Noodle Houses in Vancouver. There were talks that the kingpins of Vancouver TBN houses were watching with bated breath.

Two days ago, I read in the Loyaukee Chinese Foodie Forum, that Chef Hung had finally thrown opened the doors of his restaurant. So we planned to go for dinner but was faced with lines that is so uncommon in Chinese restaurants, let alone a TBN.

The wait was excruciatingly long. It took us 55 minutes before it got to our turn. People were patient.

While waiting in line, we overheard one of the leaving customers telling her friend who was standing in front of us that it is “hoe sek” with a thumbs up.

There were a few pictures and signs in Chinese just by the entrance. We could not read it but we can pick up the few words on the background of the pictures. We read the words “2006″, “2007″ and “International Taiwanese Beef Noodle Compet …”. Chef Hung is some hot shot award winner, it seems.

They have an open kitchen. Eight people were working in that small space. It is a busy night for them trying to keep up with the demands. We saw them hand making the crispy pancakes and grilled dumplings.

I stopped one of waitress. I had to ask who is Chef Hung. I was afraid that Chef Hung is someone still in Taiwan who merely lent his name to open an outlet here in Vancouver.

She smiled and said “black cap” and quickly walked away with a pot of tea for the customer. Oh yeah … if you are there he’s the guy with the black cap and fancier chef jacket.

He personally prepares the noodles — most of the time anyway. I kept observing him. I noticed that every now and then, he takes a spoonful of the TBN soup and tasted it. It was very often, like once every 10 minutes. That’s a good sign … the man himself doing constant quality control.

He does walk out and speak to the customer. He stopped at the table next to ours but he did not ours!! I was dying to ask him tons of questions. We overheard him telling the table next to us that he takes two days to make the TBN soup.

Chef Hung’s TBN restaurant is clean. Decor was spartan. I don’t think anyone cared, not in such places. It was quite big and can fit quite a number of people.

They even have a VIP room which you can have. However you need to spend a minimum of $200 and are limited to 1.5 hours use. First time I came across this.

We read the menu. Our eye brows were raised when we saw that they are charging $11 for a bowl of their premium TBN. That is expensive when you could get top notch TBN for $7-$8 easily. Scanning the neighboring tables we saw that the bowls are not large, just average … we had seen larger ones.

This better be good.

Here’s the food … More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle in Aberdeen Centre, Richmond (695 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. |
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Post tags: Restaurant Review, Richmond, Taiwanese