You may have been purchasing some dried Lamian in supermarkets, but now, there’s a tiny restaurant called Silk Noodle that churns out fresh thin and thick flat noodles.
A type of Chinese noodle, Lamian, is slowly becoming a lost art thanks to its laborious technique and the need of a noodle master. After a lot of twirling, pulling and kneading, these freshly hand-pulled noodles offer a springy texture with a great mouthfeel that you’ll never be able to get from dried noodles.
The technique is often quite beautiful and meditative to watch. The length and thickness of the strands will depend on the number of times the dough is stretched, folded, and twisted. Incredibly, despite stretching the dough to more than a metre long at times, a noodle master hardly breaks his strands. By the time a noodle master stretches his dough seven times, approximately 128 strands of noodles have been created.
Fresh Lamian is then usually dumped into boiling water to cook and then drained before adding to aromatic stocks, tossed or wok-fried in sauces.
At Silk Noodle, which is located at Remax Shopping Village on Argwings Kodhek Road close to Yaya Shopping Centre, Lamian is offered in both soup and fried formats, and you can also choose the thickness of the strands.
On most days, the six-tabled humble eatery is packed with noodle slurpers that are enjoying bowls of Beef Noodle Soup (KSh 600). The steaming bowl arrives with a heap of green onions, fresh coriander and some homemade roast chili oil. The broth is fragrant and slices of stewed daikon radish often float to the surface. The long threads swim in the delicious broth as you begin slurping them down. It’s really hard to not slurp when the noodles are so hot! Believe me, I’ve tried to eat and enjoy it in silence.
I’ve always loved any form of noodle or pasta, partly because my dad use to make them fresh for me. So for me to find a noodle joint such as Silk Noodle, it’s home away from home for me. And isn’t that what good food should be like?