Yunnan Cross Bridge Rice Noodle from Xiang Yuan Qiao in Crystal Mall Food Court, Burnaby
Let’s take a closer look at one of the lesser provinces in China.
I am talking about the province of Yunnan.
Here. See the map. Yunnan is the southern most province and it borders the South East Asian countries of Burma, Vietnam and Laos. If you are familiar with geography in the area, it is green and forested … more forested than anywhere else in China.
And yet it is a poverty stricken province. One third of the population are made up of several ethnic minorities which has a lot of cultural similarities to the South East Asian countries. As a matter of fact, Yunnan has more ethnic groups in the whole of China. Because of its natural beauty, this province thrives on tourism. Most of the tourism are internal. The world is still too focused on the Shanghai, Beijing and Xian.
If there is one dish that is unique to the province of Yunnan, it is the “Crossing Bridge” Rice Noodle (????). You can get it throughout the province.
I went to a stall just last week and came across the board above. Did you notice the headgear of the figures above. That is not Han Chinese but is of one of the ethnic minority groups.
I like the way they narrated the origin of the dish. It’s kind of hard to read the small print, so, I had reproduced it below:
Cross Bridge Rice Noodle is a special dish of Yunnan. It is originated during the Qianlong period, nearly 200 years ago. There is a popular legend regarding its origins.
It is said that a scholar in Mengzi, who was preparing for the Imperial examination, went to an island in the Na Lake everyday to study. His wife went across the bride to the island to bring his meal to him. Owing to the long distance, he had to eat the meal cold everyday.
Accidentally, his wife discovered that a greasy chicken soup is not easy to get cold. What’s more, fresh ingredients, such as seasonal vegetable, fresh meat and so on, can become edible by putting them into this kind of boiled soup.
From then on, the scholar could have a delicious and hot meal everyday. Because his wife went across the bridge everyday, the rice noodle made this way was named as Cross Bridge Rice Noodle.
By now, the Cross Bridge Rice Noodle has a distinct development. The most important factor in this noodle is the soup. It was made with natural hen, pig bone and ham. It needs to be boiled for over 6 hours until the soup become savory and the oil from these are distilled.
The next thing worth mentioning is the ingredients. There are two kinds of rice noodles. The proper kind is the slim one, which is good at keeping the flavour of the valuable soup. The ingredients can be divided into two categories: vegetable and meat. The vegetable used are dependent on what is in season. The meat is focus on slice. The thinner the better, so the slice meat is one of the characteristics of the Cross Bridge Noodle.
Last but not least, the process of eating is special. The right orders are as follows: firstly, put the meat slice in the soup, then the vegetable, the last one rice noodle. Minutes later, a hot colorful and delicious Cross-Bridge Rice Noodle is ready.
It is not a fancy place where I got the Crossing Bridge Rice Noodle. I came across this in the food court in Crystal Mall in Burnaby.
This stall is new. I think this stall used to serve Korean food. Anyway, you won’t miss it because it is located right on top of the escalator. I was more drawn to this place because of the story behind the dish.
While their specialty is the Crossing Bridge Rice Noodle, they have other dishes too. I thought that the Cucumber with Spicy Sauce was particularly cheap at $1.75 and so I got one to try. I like this and often order this in Sichuan restaurants.
The cucumber is fresh … crunchy and cold. It doesn’t look spicy isn’t it? There are no tell tale chili flakes. The sauce wasn’t even red. But it is spicy alright. Real nice spicy.
I was kind of disappointed when they served the Crossing Bridge Rice Noodle. They dump everything into the hot pot. No fun!
They should have served it in the traditional method …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Yunnan Cross Bridge Rice Noodle from Xiang Yuan Qiao in Crystal Mall Food Court, Burnaby (411 words)
© ben for Chow Times, 2010. |
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Post tags: Burnaby, Chinese, Food Court, Restaurant Review
