Eat these noodles, if you dare

In my research for an upcoming column on Shanghai’s best noodle dives, I visited quite a few stalls around the city. The noodle shack named simply, “Large Intestine Noodles” (大场面) has one of the highest ratings for “flavor” on restaurant web guide Dianping.com. Oddly, it also has one of the lowest ratings for “environment”. How do you score a 4 on environment and a 25 for flavor (both out of 40)? I went to check out this specialty purveyor of pig intestines and noodles one late summer night.

Upon coasting up to the doorway on my electric motorbike, I understand the discrepancy immediately. Indeed, Large Intestine Noodles is without a doubt one of the most revolting “restaurants” I have ever seen. Trash is strewn all along the front sidewalk. A big red pail of dirty dishes and a grimy ancient fan sit outside the door of this narrow duplex, calling-cards for what you will find within (click "view all images", above). The restaurant’s half-basement is used for cooking and a second floor provides a few tables. Fuwuyuan walk about wearing almost comically shabby, dirty uniforms. The interior is astonishingly filthy.

On the lower level, a cheerful middle-aged woman with a weathered tan wields a meat cleaver with terrifying carelessness. She hacks through masses of pig intestines which are mountained on her plastic cutting board. More intestines are piled willy-nilly in plastic baskets and crates on the floor. The rubbery guts, which look like pinkish-gray crinkled tubes, are overflowing out of the dirty containers. She is HACKING [this word was designed for what this woman was doing, with the connotation of pell-mell gore and guts, literally guts] at the pig intestines, and bits and pieces are flying onto the floor and around the perimeter of the cutting board, smashing up against the foul wall.

The filth is excruciating, and yet these noodles have their fans, many of them. During my short visit, many noodle diners come and go. A man in neat pajamas sits for a bowl at an outside table, with a view of the dirty dishes and trashy sidewalk. Another man on a scooter with a snowy-white, dainty, fluffy dog rides up, the dog obediently sitting on the running board. The man, wearing immaculate white slacks and shirt, sits and slurps the intestine noodles, while his dog watches with bright, knowing eyes from a nearby stool.

I spot a woman on the second floor with a bowl of noodles. I go upstairs to inspect and find a telling display: beside the dirt-encrusted walls, exhausted furniture and a dusty forlorn Buddhist altar, there is one of those fridge-sized dish sanitizers—the kind of glass-doored contraption used to sterilize dishes. But what do we see inside? Sparkling sanitized dishes? Of course not. Chopsticks? No way. Glasses? They wouldn’t hear of it. It is crammed, I mean jam-packed, with wadded-up old clothing.

I go back down the stairs and outside. As much as I want to be the brave reporter, I cannot bring myself to order the pig gut noodles after examining the state of the hacked intestines and overall squalor. Instead, I order the smoked pork noodles and gingerly sit down at the sidewalk table, alongside the fluffy dog.

The noodles arrive in a cracked blue and white porcelain bowl. They appear normal, under a layer of red chili oil broth. I take a bite. A lovely, delicate chili heat has seeped into the noodles and infused my tongue and palate with a richness of flavor. The noodles have that elusive elastic, bouncy bite, which Chinese call “qq”. It is, I have to admit, a first-rate bowl of noodles. But are the noodles worthy of a return to this god-forsaken place? In this megapolis of culinary choices? For me, not a chance. But don’t let my experience deter your quest for noodles—try Large Intestines Noodles for yourself—I dare you.

Large Intestine Noodles

59 Fuxing Zhong Lu, near Ji’an Lu and Dongtai Lu

Want to try some Chinese dishes that I actually recommend whole-heartedly? See my blogs on The Fab Five and my Sixth Bonus Pick.

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