Inside One of the Last Bamboo Noodle Shops in Hong Kong

[machine whirring]

[slurping]

Today we have a special opportunity to take a look

at how bamboo noodles are made.

Bamboo noodles are an iconic noodle in Hong Kong,

and it's rare that this is still made

by the original bamboo pole.

It's a little bit of a dying art.

So in here is Lau Sum Kee's production kitchen,

where chef makes bamboo noodles fresh every single day.

Hello, Lavan.

First thing is the dough,

and it starts with the eggs.

Look at this blue egg, slightly larger than the chicken egg

because this is a duck egg.

Duck egg, a little bit higher in fat content.

And also, as a result,

a little bit more aromatic,

a little bit [speaking foreign language].

It tastes a little bit better,

but it lacks, according to chef,

a little bit of that natural egg flavor that we're used.

The ratio of chicken eggs to duck eggs,

about 30 chicken eggs,

90 duck eggs per batch, one to three.

The most amazing thing about this noodle

is that there is no water added.

The egg is all of the hydration inside of that dough.

Eggs are cracked. Now we're gonna put the dough together.

So in the his mixer is his flour.

[speaking foreign language]

Higher in protein.

The more you knead it, the more gluten structure

you're gonna develop.

And that's the name of the game.

It's a very tight gluten protein matrix

that's gonna be resilient, elastic, and the proper texture.

This is the alkaline solution.

In the English term is usually lie,

but that can be confusing

because what's actually inside of it

differs from culture to culture.

In Hong Kong, it's primarily potassium carbonate

with a little bit of sodium carbonate.

Whoa. Cool.

[speaking foreign language]

That's it?

That was a five, 10, 15 second mixing process.

That beautiful yellow color, that comes from the eggs

and the interaction between the alkaline solution, the lie,

it's like you just want to combine the wet

and the dry ingredients relatively well

so that the kneading can actually take place on the table

with the bamboo pole.

There's a stand still bench

on which there is a piece of wood,

and chef likes to portion everything out

with these little pieces of brown paper.

So that's what he's working on.

[chef speaking foreign language]

He's putting all of his body weight

first through his fists into the dough,

just to bring it together so it's workable.

The dough is so firm

because there's no water at all,

so in order to bring it together,

it's gonna take a lot more force

than if you were to do it like a pasta dough by hand,

which is what the bamboo pole is for.

One, two, three.

It's like a cake of dough.

A piece of rubber on a couple pieces of cloth

anchored to the back of the table,

and then this thick bamboo rod, so to speak.

I mean, that's really it. Oh, cool.

[speaking in foreign language]

It's like a seasaw.

[speaking in foreign language]

The bamboo pole leverages the weight of the chef

to get that dough to really combine

and to encourage that gluten formation.

I mean, the bounce is not just for show.

The bounce is a small movement of the pole

from one side to the other to lengthen

and stretch that dough out,

but also to bring that dough back together.

After the first pressing,

it's gonna look a little bit like the shape of a fan,

so he'll rotate it 180 degrees and do it again.

This is a very physical process

that really depends on the chef,

even more so than most other cooking things,

because the amount of force

that's applied into the dough is dependent

on the weight of the chef itself.

But all of this is to say that it all comes from experience.

So we're looking for a lot of gluten information.

We're looking for a lot of elasticity,

but if you knead the dough too much

then that noodle becomes too hard.

And too little means that the dough's

not gonna come together.

Standing here watching him do it,

it feels as if it's quite simple,

but I know for a fact that if I were to try it,

it wouldn't come out right.

And it's just a matter of a lot of these

invisible little bits

and pieces of experience that allow

that it'll become a certain type of way.

Understanding of the climate

and the dough that is really hard to quantify.

This bamboo pole is from chef's uncle, 40 years old,

this one here, 10 plus.

To prevent it from cracking, after each session,

he'll put a little bit of water on it,

just to rub it down, hydrate it just very slightly,

and this becomes a lifelong bamboo pole.

Next step is to get it sheeted out.

Sheeting also helps kn and combine it a little bit as well,

but you had to get it incorporated in the first place,

which is why the bamboo pole was so important.

Thinner and thinner and thinner rollers.

And at the end, it's a little dusting of flour.

Then it gets rolled up quite neatly.

After that, this coil gets put in front of the cutter,

and it gets rest here for another at least five minutes

because it's been going through a lot of kneading

through these four machines.

That is a collection of one very, very, very long noodle.

And so he's gonna tear it up by hand

and place it inside of that tray.

The chef says you want to see a bit of elasticity,

but you want it to snap

because if it doesn't snap,

it means that you wouldn't be able to bite through it.

So chef needs to finish the noodles,

but this emergency batch of noodles

is going to the restaurant.

So let's head back over there and try to get some food.

Welcome to their second location. Time to order.

[speaking in foreign language]

Very few dishes in Hong Kong are more iconic

or more emblematic of Hong Kong than the wonton noodle.

This is a third generation shop, Lau Sum Kee.

Started off with the chef grandfather,

came down from Guangzhou, originally started as a cart

that becomes a [speaking foreign language]

an outside street stall that finally becomes a storefront

around the corner on Fuk Wing in 1992.

The wonton noodle is three components.

First, the wontons dumplings wrapped with shrimp and pork.

The wonton wrapper traditionally is made from the exact

same dough as the noodles themselves,

so stores who make bamboo noodles from scratch

also have the same dough ready to make wantons.

The second component is the bamboo noodle itself.

Noodles go into the hot water.

She's constantly agitating with chopsticks,

trying to loosen it up as quickly as possible.

You want those noodles to become separated the instant

that they hit the water

so that they don't clump up and cook unevenly.

And then once they've hydrated full of water,

it actually goes into cold water

where she's constantly agitating it,

and then back into the hot water.

Into the cold water to get rid of any alkaline soapy flavor.

And the second cook is to finish the hydration process

for the noodle.

Into the bowl, on top of the wontons.

There's no seasoning, no sesame oil,

nothing required

'cause the name of the game is delicacy and cleanliness.

And the last component broth built off of pork bones

and flounder and bits and pieces of shrimp

with a little bit of fresh yellow chives

to garnish, the broth goes into the bowl.

And that's your typical Lau Sum Kee wonton noodle soup bowl.

For me, the most important metric of a good bowl

of bamboo noodles is the springiness of noodle.

It needs to be resilient. It shouldn't get soft.

It shouldn't sort of dissolve into the soup.

There are wonton noodle shops all over Hong Kong,

but it's pretty hard to find a wonton noodle shop

and still makes their bamboo noodles by pole, by hand.

That insistence on that quality

and the insistence on craftsmanship

and control is why we're here.

At the table they'd would give you a little bit of either...

[speaking foreign language] Ooh, amazing.

[speaking in foreign language]

It's a little bit like that fajita effect

when the server brings over the fajitas in the restaurant

and you can smell it,

and everybody can smell it and makes you want to eat it.

That's what happens with these wanton noodles.

The heat of the broth is bringing everything up

to the surface and into the air,

and the first thing you smell is a certain type of sweetness

that's grounded in almost like a earthy umami thing.

And that's the sea bringing up, though,

that gentle aromatics from those yellow chives,

but also everything that's been put inside of that broth.

The clarity of that broth is paramount.

You can see the bottom of the bowl,

and you know that they achieve this

with a very gentle simmer, a very low temperature coaxing

of all of those flavor compounds out of everything

that's inside of that flavor satchel.

Sorry, I took a, [laughing]

I took a spoon before I was gonna tell you,

but it is just so enticing.

So ridiculous, so good.

The bamboo noodles have to be on top

because you don't want them to soak up too much broth.

If you ever get wanton noodles

with wantons serve on the top,

you know that that shop isn't serious.

You know that they're not highlighting

the technique of the noodles themselves.

We see that bounce, see that noodle?

We want this to be elastic and resilient, not hard.

If it's hard, it means it's brittle,

which means that it's been dried.

This is fresh every day. Okay, about time.

[speaking foreign language]

It slips in.

It's so, so, so, so thin.

It's so slippery.

It's such a nice compliment to the broth

and the wontons themselves

because really this bowl is just the same

couple of ingredients that pork, fish, shrimp, the eggs over

and over again in different textures and different layers.

It plays really, really well with the broth itself.

The broth is robust.

It's got a, it's very, very clean,

but it's not milky like creamy, like soup.

So for a thin noodle,

I think this is the best way to eat it.

Thin soup. Thin broth, thin delicate noodles.

[indistinct chattering in the background]

The Hong Kong style wanton

is bigger with a little bit more filling.

Oftentimes at least one whole shrimp.

And the tail is either of this length, kind of medium

or non-existent.

A whole piece of shrimp,

a little bit of fattiness from the pork

to counter the natural sweetness of the shrimp.

[indistinct chattering in he background]

Yummy!

The wonton wrapper is so silky smooth

that counteracts the bite of the noodle itself.

It's kind of like a bit of a contrast,

but on the other hand, it's also comparative,

and it's also synergistic with the same shrimp

and pork products that are inside of the broth itself.

It's all sort of stacked on top of each other

for this ecosystem, this bowl of flavor.

When I was young eating a Hong Kong noodle chops,

I always preferred the more robust flavors,

the beef briskets and the softer things of velvety,

sort of like rice noodles.

But as I'm growing up, I've come to appreciate the delicacy

and the cleanliness of something like a wanton noodle.

It was thinner noodle, just really carry

what is so incredible

and difficult to pin down about Cantonese cooking.

It's taken us long enough to cover the bamboo noodles.

Everybody who comes to Hong Kong looks for that perfect bowl

of bamboo or wonton noodles,

and it was great to see the process

because I know that this is a bit of a dying art.

Only two or three places are still doing this.

If you're looking for that Hong Kong take

on the bamboo noodle that spring,

that chew, that elasticity, that flavor,

this is the place to be.