Slurping is cultural...

I had a very lazy Wednesday afternoon, and wanted to go out for lunch. My friend suggested we go and be unhealthy and eat at the food court at Aberdeen Centre. For most of you who are not familiar with the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, AC is the ultimate Asian store. As I like to call it, the worst part of Richmond ever. (Some photos were from Google)


Seriously, if you want to get out of there alive, drive an SUV. Asian people are scared of big cars, especially in that ridiculous parkade. Anyways, we didn't exactly go to the food court as we planned, but instead went to the new place that's on the second level of AC, Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle. I was there the day of the grand opening, and it was packed. Literally. Line ups and at least an hour wait.


Like...holy crap. It's a good thing that I didn't want to venture during the first few days of the grand opening, so it was nice that my friend Suzi and I went on a slow day after lunch hours. I have to say that the decor of the place was lovely. Very mellow, modern, and yet has a flair of elegance. There is a VIP room, but there's a minimum cost for using it, at least $200 and a time limit of 1.5 hours. Not a choice of places to host a party, that's all I can say.


The service at the time we had wasn't that helpful. Usually you are served with tea when it comes to Chinese restaurants but we waited for about 10 minutes for tea and for a menu. When asked for a menu as she poured one cup of tea, she abandoned the other cup and left to get a menu. As she gave our menu, she completely forgot to pour the other cup with tea. Boo on you. As my friend Suzi and I looked at the menu, our mouths dropped. Food costs about $7 to $11 for an average sized bowl of noodles and soup, and the appetizers were small and ranged from $3 to $6. I'm that type of person who would pay good money for good food, but literally I can go to Tony's Beef Noodle House on Cambie and 41st and be satisfied.

Here at Chef Hung, the protocol is different. Each bowl of noodle is carefully analyzed before cooking. Chef Hung takes special care of the noodles before submerging it into the cooker. Noodles are fresh, and I can vouch for that because the first thing I smelled when walking pass the open kitchen was dough. All I could smell was dough, and it made me drool even more because I knew I was getting fresh noodles.

I ordered the Beef Brisket with THIN Noodle in Clear Soup


And Suzi ordered Sour Mustard Cabbage and Shredded Pork with THICK Noodle in Clear Soup.


I didn't have any of Suzi's, but with the faces she was making ( ^.^ ) ..I could tell it was good. I went to town on mine though. The soup was clean. No lies on what the menu was saying, and the noodles...OH DEAR GOD it was so yummy. Even the beef. So tender and it literally almost fell apart when I was picking it up with my chopsticks. The whole restaurant had the sound of slurping. Usually, the sound of slurping is a sign that the food is good, if it's silent, that means the food suck. I've always hated the sound of it, and didn't really believe in this whole myth of slurping if the food is good. I couldn't help myself, the food was that good.

So I slurped....and my stomach was full of noodle goodness.