The small space on Yunhe Street near Shida night market that used to house Maryjane before the pizzeria’s recent move has been given a makeover — or rather, a make-under. It’s now home to a spartan noodle house, but instead of the usual beef noodles found in the night market, Lichiang (麗江南洋風味麵食館) takes taste buds on a trip to Southeast Asia.
The restaurant’s menu is inspired by cuisine from southeast Asian countries, as well as Yunnan, a province in China that neighbors Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. Most of its noodle dishes are prepared from a choice of regular flour noodles, hefen (河粉), aka flat rice noodles, or babasi (巴巴絲), thinner rice noodles with a softer texture that are used in Vietnamese and Thai cuisines.
Lichiang’s signature dish is its Yunnan noodles (雲南製涼麵, NT$70), or cold flour noodles topped with spicy nuoc cham sauce, cilantro, julienne cucumber and carrot slices, and neat strips of marinated and barbecued pork. Crisp slivers of sauteed garlic balance the tangy nuoc cham and add some texture to the heap of noodles. The pork was sliced so thinly that it was easy to forget once I had mixed up all the ingredients, but the hint of meat made the dish heartier and more interesting than other versions of cold noodles.
On a separate visit, we ordered the curry chicken dry noodles with babasi (咖哩雞乾, NT$70) and barbecue pork with flour noodles (叉燒乾, NT$70). The curry chicken was the superior of the two, far outshining the bland pork noodles, which actually did not have that much meat, or even much of pork flavor. The latter was topped with cabbage, chopped scallion and dried ramen noodles, none of which managed to make the dish any more memorable. The curry chicken, on the other hand, was plump and juicy. I chose the babasi over the other two noodle options because its soft rice strands are supposed to soak up the curry flavor more effectively, and that was indeed the case — good thing, too, because the curry was very gentle, neither pungent nor spicy. The curry chicken noodles were also topped with cabbage and dried ramen noodles that were surprisingly effective at adding some crunchy fun to the dish.
Lichiang’s decor is bare-bones — a fact that’s good-naturedly pointed out in a giant advertising poster on the front door. Its only wall decorations are two picture menus and some tissue dispensers. The prices are low, however, and portions surprisingly large. Service is brisk, especially for cold dishes (my Yunnan noodles took only about two minutes to arrive).
The restaurant has a take-out special: if you order 10 meals to go, the 11th is free. Cans of soda (NT$20 each) and mango, tamarind or coconut juice (NT$30) are also available.
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