This Beef Noodle Soup Is the Best Late Night Dish in Taiwan

[broth sploshing]

[food sizzling]

[food fizzing]

[Eric moans]

Welcome to late night in Taipei.

I'm here with Chef Eric,

Taiwanese chef, authority, general person to hang out with

when the night goes on.

We're here at 牛肉麵*雞湯

famous proper Taiwanese beef noodle soup place.

Beef noodle soup is the dish in Taiwan,

and in my opinion, it's even better late night.

[Lucas] These guys are busy all night

and I heard Chef is putting on a new batch of soup,

so we're gonna go check it out.

Hello, hello.

Hello. - Hello.

- Hello, hello.

First thing that Chef is doing

is prepping the base liquid of his broth.

That liquid is chicken, beef bone,

and a little bit of which is not,

as I understand it is strictly traditional,

but it's all going to impart flavor in a clean, sweet way.

The goal here is sweetness

and sort of delicacy, balanced with a thickened texture

that comes from that emulsified fat with water.

[food sploshing]

just to immerse all of the

and the carrots in the bottom.

That was step one.

Step two, he's gonna activate his aromatics.

Chef is going to start off

by melting a little bit of beef tallow

and he's gonna bring that up to temperature

to extract as much flavor as he can.

Ginger goes in first just 'cause it's a little bit wet.

It's gonna take a little bit more time

to extract its flavor.

You can honestly smell how aromatic it is in this kitchen

before any of this beef has been involved.

Wait, so talk to me.

This is the most traditional cut for beef, right?

Yes, so actually in Taiwan, the beef shank is one

of the most prized cuts.

Beef shank is very large.

This is the very inner part of the beef shank muscle.

Cool. - Taiwanese people love it

because it has the most sort

of even distribution of fat, collagen, tendon, and meat.

So as you can see, the intermuscular tendon on this cut is

what makes this beef shank so valuable,

especially in Taiwanese cuisine

and any cuisine that utilizes a lot

of braising technique for beef dishes.

It's actually that too many people throw away.

It's actually people that really don't think about.

And in one cut, you get three textures.

They're meaty, fatty and bouncy from tender.

Right, so this is beef cheek,

right? - This to me is

what makes really unique.

Beef cheeks. Notoriously difficult to cook, right?

French people cook it for hours

and hours in beef bourguignon.

[Lucas] Do you usually get this in-

No. Dude, I barely see this in Taiwan ever.

I've never really seen beef cheeks in Taiwan growing up.

I tried looking at beef cheeks and I just can't find 'em.

And finally...

[Eric] Finally, the riblets,

basically- - Amazing.

A fattier part of the short rib.

Everybody loves a good short rib

that just bursts umami from beef.

[Lucas] You'll see one thick layer of fat,

a layer of membrane, and a little bit of tendon.

It's too chewy for most classic Western preparations.

A very, very underrated part of the cow

that's used in a lot of Asian cooking.

And-

Before we continue check out the scallions.

Scallions are about to go into the fat as well.

From a scientific perspective, there are flavors

that can be extracted by different solvents.

One is water, another is oil.

And in something like beef noodle soup,

it's important to have both.

When you're drinking this soup, that oil is going

to be the top layer of that soup.

And because it's going to be hot,

those aromatic compounds are going

to slowly rise from the top of the soup going to your nose.

That thin layer of oil is the first interaction,

the first culinary flavor experience of the entire thing.

That's why it's so important to take care.

And every single thing is as flavorful

as possible from step number one.

[onions clattering]

So the onions cook down for about an hour

until they're nice and caramelized.

And this step is essential to creating a broth

that has varied levels of sweetness

and not just sweetness from sugar.

[strainer rustling]

It's been about an hour or so,

and it really resembles

the more conventional caramelized onions

that you cannot cheat.

It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes slow heat.

[wok clattering]

Chef is going to be sauteing his seasonings.

In the same exact wok,

we're just gonna add a little bit more fat,

but we want to keep all of that onion flavor.

This mixture of fermented bean paste,

Chef uses three different types of bean paste.

The Sichuan style, fermented fava bean paste

called

The more traditional Taiwanese style fermented soybean paste

called

And the third

is a sweet rice swine fruit,

which is a fermented soybean.

Okay, so Chef's mom is Hakka

and that is owed to his mother.

As you can see, it has the byproduct of making rice wine

as well as the soybeans themselves

and the pressed ground soybean.

[munches]

It has like that nice kick

of sweetness in the back

while being very, very savory up front.

It's super, super funky as well.

There's so much sugar inside the bean paste.

If chef is not constantly agitating it in the wok,

it's going to stick to the bottom and burn immediately.

So this step is gonna be 10 minutes.

And after we're gonna be adding in the soy sauce

and then cooking the soy sauce down with the bean paste,

Chef is going to be adding these two sugars.

This is rock sugar which is a much milder sweetness,

and this is called

And it has a much more malty and molassity flavor.

I think Chef's philosophy is to season things

with the same ingredient

but different flavor profiles, right?

So two types of sugar, three types of

In goes the beef tallow, scallion, and spices.

We're going to be pouring this entire vat

of seasoning into the broth.

[seasoning sploshing]

And this becomes our base for beef noodle soup.

[broth burbling]

And now we're gonna be adding in the rice wine

and the tomatoes.

The tomatoes are skinless.

They go through that painstaking process

of poaching tomatoes

and then peeling the skin by one

just so there's no bitterness

from the skin leaching into the broth.

I'm sitting here, not an expert,

but I am excited about tasting the layers of flavor

that Chef has spent so much time building up.

It needs to be beefy-

Salty. - Salty, sweet,

and all of it needs to be balanced out with each other.

And the general timing of all the beef

is the large beef cheeks go in first for about 30 minutes

and then followed by beef shanks

and the smaller beef cheeks for 20 minutes.

And then finally, the riblets go in for about 10 minutes

that adds up to one hour, followed by another hour

of resting, totaling two hours of cook time.

And also the beef needs to be braised to the point

where it's tender, but it's not overly tender.

Because you can overcook a beef shank,

you can overcook a beef cheek.

Sure. - It needs to have

a structural integrity, not like a steak,

but it needs to fight back a little bit in your mouth

and not just completely give.

What makes food incredible is the attention to detail.

And I wanna point out a couple of things.

All the way at the end, you have a noodle cooker.

Chef is very, very proud of that noodle cooker.

It's an expensive machine

because it's a Japanese imported machine

that constantly is refreshing the pasta water that

that noodle is being cooked in.

If it weren't for this feature, it would pick up all

of this starch from the noodles that we're cooked

before, meaning that the noodle gets soggier and soggy

and soggier over time.

The second thing is, there's a little bit

of a thermometer right above one of the chefs

that is keeping the soup at exactly 94 degrees.

At that temperature with a thin sheen of oil over the top,

you won't run into the issue of too much

of that soup evaporating

and that soup getting too salty over time.

The noodle's going to cook for about two minutes.

There are two types of noodles here.

First is a thicker noodle, pure wheat, sort of inspired

by the [speaks foreign language] from China.

And then there's a slightly yellow thinner noodle

that has the additional of a little bit of alkaline

for a little bit of bounce.

Both are legitimate choices

and everybody has their own preferences.

Bright greens over the top, mostly for color.

First is the shank, second is the cheek, and third the rib.

One of each, a little bit of tendon and tripe over the top.

Almost all of the textures that a cow has to offer.

It's beautiful. It's glistening.

And over the top is the soul of the dish, really, the soup.

You see that thin sheet of oil?

That's where all of the aromatics are.

That's where all the brightness is.

Scallions over the top for a voraciousness

and a touch of cilantro.

I'm getting kind of hungry. Show me how we do this.

Let's order.

So first, grab a ticket.

[ticket rustling]

We're number 220.

And we grab a menu right here and a marker.

This entire section is the beef noodle soup section.

You get to choose the size of your bowl,

the thickness of your noodle, doneness of your noodle,

and richness of your broth.

So it's a lot, but let me just-

I just need the Eric Sze special here.

Eric Sze special, like all things Eric Sze,

maximum everything.

I love

because right now it's past midnight and they're still full.

Growing up in Taipei, I've never had a place

that serves beef noodle soup

at this quality past midnight, period.

And as a beef noodle soup fanatic,

having an establishment like this changes the game.

The whole thing with beef noodle soup is

that there are all these like stories of Chinese pilots

bringing in certain bean pastes from certain places,

noodles being brought in from different places,

and all these things and the not consumption of beef,

and now there's a consumption of beef.

And all these like different stories.

The creation of the beef noodle soup itself seems

to be a process of,

I really don't wanna use the word fusion,

but the bringing together of cultures and influences,

and to continue in that tradition of not being restricted

by what you're influenced by,

I think Chef is introducing

some really interesting ingredients

and techniques into his beef noodle soup.

They just called our number.

Oh, yeah.

First things first. Safety is our first priority.

Adhesive disposable bibs from

Wait, wait, wait. First you try the broth.

If the broth is good, you're in for a treat.

[Lucas slurps]

Yum.

[Lucas slurps] [Eric moans]

It's actually way brighter than I expected.

The tomato at the end-

Has a very nice punch to it.

The tomato gives it that like acidity.

It lifts the whole thing

with voraciousness from the cilantro and the scallions.

And it's quite beefy as well.

But if you want it beefier

and every table is this condiment,

which is a spicy beef tallow made

from the renderings of beef fat.

[Lucas] With chili or

[Eric] With chili and a little bit

and often a little bit of sugar.

So the way to do it is dab it into a spoon full of broth.

There we go.

And then you melt it right here

and then you incorporate it into the whole bowl.

Okay, this is quite spicy, right? Or not really?

Not really that spicy. It's more beefy.

Let's pull here. You can almost see the texture.

Immediately you know the noodles are perfectly cooked.

Nice and springy. - Got balanced.

So these are the thin alkaline noodles, right?

Yes. - These are ones

that you like?

[Eric] Yeah.

[Lucas] I'm gonna go in. Okay.

[Eric slurps]

[Lucas slurps]

Mm.

[both slurping]

Best thing about eating with a buddy, you get to switch.

Eric was kind of right

and I wanted a thin noodle, but here we are.

All aspects of your palate are hip.

I'm gonna try the beef cheeks.

[Eric slurps]

Whoa.

It just like disappears.

It holds up- - It just disintegrates.

Holds up well. - It tastes like fibers.

Oh, goodness. - Yum.

I actually think it's the best cut.

Dude, did you eat my short rib?

Where is my short rib? Here it is.

It's got little pockets of fat, so on it,

it's gonna be a little bit bouncy.

Mm-hmm.

Oh.

[chopsticks clattering]

So beef also.

Oh, my goodness.

It's so good. How is this so good?

Every now and then, I have beef noodle soup

that really pisses me off.

Right here, it pisses me off

'cause I cannot make a beef noodle soup this good.

I have tried, I have tried, I've tried.

It's just everything about it is perfect.

And just imagine a scenario

where you're getting outta the club

or you're getting off of a big night with your friends

or your buddies, or you're getting off

of a very late night shift.

2:00 in the morning, you're starving.

Your last meal was about 16 hours ago.

And you sit down to the bowl of this.

Dude, I have had enough of your talking.

Dude, it's actually ridiculously good.

It far exceeded expectations.

[people slurping]