Cold skin-noodle, the girl’s summer craze
Xi’an’s summer is long and hot. Cooking is miserable, appetite is dampened beyond repair. But the girls will have one street food all day every day. Don’t hope they would get self-redemption. Any attempt of walking away would end up with more cravings.
It’s the cold skin-noodle. “Skin” is a direct translation. It actually has nothing to do with the skin of any kind. In the Chinese context, we call any sort of thin sheet the “skin”. Skin noodle comes off a large round steamed sheet of flour or rice powder. The well-washed batter is pasted on the bamboo surfaces of a multi-story steamer. After steaming, it’s immersed in cold water to generate elasticity, then cut into noodles before scooped into a shallow bowl. It’s topped with sesame butter, chili oil, vinegar (again!), minced garlic, a couple of shredded cucumber, yellow-bean sprouts, and sometimes broccoli.
The gluten that comes out of the wash is squeezed into tofu-like chunks. They are cut and spread on the noodle to contrast its mellowness, like the breadcrumbs in the salad. Still, a well-crafted vinegar is essential. It’s pre-fried with scallion and ginger, which are supposed to cool down the body. Sesame butter is the new weapon. Its soothing touch and thick aroma add a new layer to the noodles. The chili oil has the powder filtered out, only the glaring red remains. A typical last step service is, the chef takes out one piece of noodle, dips it into the oil, and puts it back in the bowl. Then the bowl turns red.
Many Xi’an girls love the summer because they love the cold skin-noodle. They say it helps them wash all the guilt related to binge eating: low calories, veg, tasty, cheap, fast, and keeping the appetite alive. Decades ago, there were only mobile carts on the street selling skin-noodles. Almost everyone had a long line waiting to pay about $20cents, back then, for a little bowl of noodle. No seat service; stand there to finish it or take away — a shabby plastic bag for the noodles, and a couple of tiny ones for the sesame butter, oil, vinegar, and vegs.
Now they are selling it in restaurants and franchise chains. No waiting time, and the summer craze never subsides. It’s become a rising icon of Xi’an food, especially among female consumers. Some flavors have developed into solid patterns with particular fans, then centered to certain regions attracting foodies from afar. Two suburb areas stand out as the skin-noodle hubs. One is called “Qingzheng”, one hour drive to the west. It’s known for the rice noodle and the sesame butter. Another is called “Hanzhong”, two hours train to the south. Its specialty is flour noodle and gluten toppings. I remember ten years or so ago, a bowl of skin-noodle in Hanzhong cost about $50cents, while the round transportation took almost one day and the fares as much as 30 bowls of the noodle. For many girls and young couples, it was their skin-noodle carnival.
A fair warning to Xi’an visitors or skin-noodle seekers. Many skin-noodle restaurants have the front signs with “Qingzheng” or “Hanzhong”. It’s not a guarantee of the recipe or quality. In most cases they just indicate they are selling the rice or flour noodles. Only the locals know where the best stores are. They normally stay out of the big street and don’t have the fancy signs. Rumors say that some stores are using opium powder to attract customers. This seems to well explain why girls can’t stop eating it. But it hardly explains another situation. Some stores stay there for over decades. They never grow the business. Some early stores, they close right after 10 am. Some late ones, they only open after 5 pm.
