Chinese Noodle Restaurant

This is it. This restaurant will change your life.

Melbourne blogger Claire put it well when she said every Sydneysider likes to think that Chinese Noodle Restaurant (CNR shall we?) is his/her own little secret.  Any serious attempt at such a claim at this stage is pointless (every tom, dick and surry hills hipster harry eats there now), however I certainly like to think that I rode the early wave of CNR's extra-chinese-australian-community fame several years back.

Ownership claims aside, I find a visit to CNR (also known commonly as 'dumplings' or 'fake grapes' - the reason clear upon entry) an absolute necessity at least once a week when living in Sydney.  Jiǎozi, the Beijing style dumplings that are the claim to fame of this place, are becoming all the time more available and popular (I even recently tracked down a decent restaurant - or perhaps i should say dealer given the desperate following these things have - in Berlin), but the simple truth is that there is just nowhere like CNR.


Let's go directly to the meat of this discussion, and worry about the details later.

What are jiǎozi?

Northern China.  Discs made of wheat flour and water.  Filled and folded over into half-moon dumplings.  A potentially enormous range of fillings, but the classics are minced meat or fish, most commonly pork, plus one or two vegetables; or some variety of vegetarian filling, which could be egg + chives/mushrooms, vegetables with no egg, etc.

Cooking options: steamed, boiled, pan-fried.  In my opinion and after considerable experimentation, the far superior choice is to have your dumplings boiled (in mandarin these are called water dumplings: shuǐ jiǎo!). I also sometimes order a few fried for textural variety and because some people go wild for them.  Steamed I tend to say right away from, since while they offer a similar in-mouth experience to boiled, they arrive with a dry/sticky exterior; they thus often stick to whatever they were steamed on and break, and in my opinion they simply offer no apparent advantage to boiled.  As far as i know the boiled dumplings are cooked in plain water and not broth.

My all-time favourite flavour at CNR is pork & chive. The second choice would have to be pork & cabbage. I also enjoy the lamb fillings, but announce a caution to those who are at all ambivalent towards this meat as they are quite strongly lamby.  The vegetarian filling satisfies and usually manages to sneak itself in as a half-serve-fried onto our table, however I believe the pork is really where it's at for CNR, and can recommend other places if you really need your jiǎozi meat-free.

Order at least 8 dumplings per person and a cucumber salad (cucumber+tons of garlic+superb vinegar/sesame dressing).  This much is not optional.  As with Sydney Madang this place is best enjoyed with a group, so when you have more than two in your party, you should also try one of their hand-made noodle stir-fries (number TWO noodles! The boiled ones! This is important).  I like the vegetarian option here.  I also highly recommend the braised eggplant dish (give it a few minutes to cool off) and the dry-fried green beans.  To be honest, including the variations of dumpling fillings and noodle accompaniments, and with the exception of the occasional plate of steamed greens and mushrooms, this is about all I ever order here.  It's a large and potentially daunting menu and it's best to stick to what they do well.  (Some people also talk about the shredded chicken salad, if that's your thing.)

This leads me to an interesting point about this restaurant, which was brought to my attention by a friend who is infinitely more knowledgeable on chinese food than I, and which I was later able to observe for myself when I ate in China for a month with this particular friend.  The observation is that CNR makes food from a variety of regions in China.  The dumplings, as I have said, are typically northern.  The dry-fried green beans, on the other hand, are a typical Sìchuān (central-south-west China) dish.  And perhaps most interestingly, the hand-pulled noodles (shou lā miàn)  that the restaurant is also famous for, are made all over China by Chinese muslims of western origin who run restaurants whose menus are similar to each other to a mysterious degree (but of course no pork there).  So what's the story?  Although rampant mixing of styles and merciless bastardisation of traditional dishes was a given in every infamous local chinese takeaway thirty years ago, a confusion of regions is not usually expected in a high-quality, no-frills, not-at-all-catering-to-non-chinese-market dumplings house in Sydney's chinatown.

As yet, I don't have any answers for you.  No interview has been conducted, nor have I met anyone with inside knowledge.  Honestly though, this state of affairs presents no great concern for me.  Whatever the origins of CNR, they really know how to make 'F-off good' jiǎozi, sichuan beans AND muslim-style noodles, and when the quality is that high, does the rest matter so much?

As a little aside, and as regulars will already know, the hand-crafting of the noodles is quite a sight (and sound) and at CNR you get a front row seat!

 
Instructions on eating  jiǎozi. (Believe it or not, some people don't know yet!)

You need a little bowl, a spoon, vinegar (at CNR, this is the bottle thoughtfully marked V), chilli and some chopsticks.  Put a generous amount of vinegar, and chilli to your taste, in the bowl.  Grasp a dumpling between your chopsticks and give it a little bath in your bowl.  You want to taste the vinegar and chilli, so don't be shy.  Some people like to pierce the dumpling here, to allow vinegar inside.  This is not completely unacceptable, but you do risk losing any juices trapped inside, and in any case if you can resist sticking the whole thing into your mouth on the first bite, then the second vinegar-dip will yield superior saturation.  From the first dipping on, it can be helpful to rest the little sucker on your spoon so he doesn't get away. Et voilà! Oh, and some people (I'm one of them) also add soy (yes, it's the one labelled S) to the dipping bowl.

I would also like to comment on the drinking that goes with the eating here. Drink tea, and lots of it. It's free, and when you want another pot just turn the lid upside down and they'll bring you some more. Simple! Dumplings is not just the food, its all about the atmosphere. It has to be fast, loud and sweaty in there with lots of colour, movement and no-fuss service (the floor staff really have it down here, and the hostess is my hero) and drinking beer just doesn't fit! At least that's my point of view. Go ahead and drink beer if you like, but my perfect sydney monday night will always be a quick hit of dumplings (with tea), and then a bottle of wine picked up on the way to your date with some amazing little underground (or not so underground as may be the case these days) jazz den.

Did I mention that this place is really, really, really good?

Go crazy.

PS I will happily respond to anyone who claims his or her life has not changed after discovering CNR. They have obviously gotten something wrong.