Twisted Noodle Bar ~ Chinese - Chinatown

Twisted Noodle Bar is another case of "I've walked past here a zillion times and never thought to try it." But on a wintery afternoon the thought of a big hot bowl of noodle soup beckoned Mr Shawn off the street like a Scientologist with a clipboard.

Don't worry, Twisted Noodle Bar has nothing to do with Scientology. There's no e-meters here, even Katie Holmes is welcome. However you do need to complete a small personality test when you order soup. You will be asked how spicy would you like it: Small-Medium-Large-Super or Extreme. And you will be asked how sour you would like your soup: no sour-small-medium-or-large. You may even be asked how much sugar you would like in your drink, assuming that isn't too personal. Your noodle soup personality test is then processed in the kitchen.



Twisted Noodle Bar does Yunnan style food, which is from the very South West of China, sharing borders with Burma, Laos, and Vietnam, as well as the spice fiends of Sichuan to the north. What makes this particularly interesting is that we only learnt it off Wikipedia five minutes ago.

Our pick of the menu is the Yunnan Noodle which comes with a fried chicken wing and a little boy (sausage) on the side, with lots more goodies in the soup. The end of bowl moment where the mince pork mixes in with the noodle is divine.

We love the food at Twisted Noodle Bar, though this style of soup may not appeal to everybody. We've never seen Tom Cruise in here for instance. We love the generous serve of broth, rehydrating and refreshing, and the fun fillings. It's Thetan-free too.

• Shueng Wan Noodle (or rice) - $10.80. Big chewy chunks of beef. The radish is a simple stodge filler, like  boiled potato. The pork broth was great - tangy and sour from the pickled veg with just the right amount of chili heat, the super nice tops boss lady suggested "small" heat which is just right for Goldilocks.
• Yunnan Noodle  - $11.80. - pork, soy egg, beef, chicken wing, sausage, bean sprouts, tofu and chives -  We thought the long list of ingredients would make the soup too busy, but the deep fried chicken wing and the little hot dog are served on the side, it works really well. There's lots of goodies in here, $12 is pricey for a noodle soup but it's worth it.
• Red River Mengzi Noodle - $9.80. Lots of cute little Asian hot-diggety-dogs with tofu, chives and bean sprouts.
• Chili pork chop noodle - $11.20. Fried pork chops make the world a better place, Homer Simpson would agree, though he may not be so keen as we were on the bean sprouts, soy egg, chives, and tofu. .

We're normally not so keen on the soft, white starchy style of noodle used here, they are plain in flavour and have no chew to them, but with a strong flavoured broth they can work well.



Lime ice - $3.80. The boss lady asks how much sugar you want. Mr Shawn says, "just a little" which is just right, bitter but not too much.



Ginger honey (hot) - $3.80. Sweet and gingery, perfect on a cold day. There's shreds of real ginger in the bottom of the cup. Joy.



There's a range of side dishes to try. Miss Chicken orders  chili garlic pig stomach ($4.20). Mr Shawn is iffy about offal but he likes this dish, the ofal-y flavours are well masked with chili and garlic. We also try soft pork bone ($4.90) - slow, slow cooked and tender. Fantastic on first bite but very salty, a generous serve best shared.




Twisted Noodle Bar Menu. Note they are no longer doing the fish soups.



Twisted Noodle Bar Menu.



Twisted Noodle Bar is at Shop 44/1 Dixon Street, Chinatown. Phone 9267  2327.




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