Sunday, March 14, 2010

Crossing bridge rice noodle soup 过桥米线

Once upon of time in China, there was a pair of newlyweds who lived in a two different cities. The cities were separated by a river, but they are connected by a stone bridge The couple were separated because the husband must study for the imperial exam. So when he pass the exam, he can be a scholar and bring home glory and honor.

So every single day, the pretty and virtuous young wife will take a basket of food and then carry them across the city and cross the bridge to serve home-made lunch for her darling one . But as the days grew colder, it was getting more and more impossible to serve warm food for the husband who's a picky eater. And back then, there were no microwaves or heat-isolating lunch boxes. So the culinary skills of the young wife was tested. Being as a smart as she was, she came out with a great idea on how to bring her husband a warm meal. She cooked hot soup and she covered them with a lot of vegetable oil on top. Because vegetable oil helped to isolate the heat of the soup, she made sure that the soup stay warm. Along with the soup she prepared rice noodles, vegetables and meats.

Once she met her husband, she took out the soup and mixed in the meats, veggies and rice noodles into the warm soup. And this is how she made sure that she can keep on serving warm meals to her husband. The dish she prepared became really famous in the Yunnan area and thus it is named as the "crossing bridge rice noodle soup" (过桥米线, guo qiao mi xian).

Okay enough of story and fable, there is only one restaurant that sells the crossing bridge rice noodle soup in the entire Berlin. And again you can find it in Dodeli China Restaurant at Kantstraße (Remember? I blogged about their beef noodle soup)

crossing bridge rice noodle berlin


When you order the rice noodle soup, you will get a bowl of soup, three types of meats: duck, pork and lamb, veggies such as bok choys, pickled sour vegetables, and crushed walnuts & peanuts on a tray. Before you can eat the noodle soup, first you have to add in the meats, especially the thinly sliced lambs (they're raw, so remember that add them in first). The heat from the soup will cook the lamb (the soup is really hot but you won't see the smoke because of the oil). Next, you add in veggies and finally, you add in the noodles. And Voila! it's ready to eat, but don't forget to blow on the noodles! I ate the hot & spicy flavored broth, but they also serve other flavors such as seafood, vegetarian and chicken broth.


guo qiao mi xian


guo qiao mi xian

3 comments:

  1. Wow that looks incredible! Your blog is so useful!

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  2. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful soup. Thanks for telling us the story behind it, too.

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  3. Oh my goodness! That bowl of noodles looks really flavorful! :) I want some now too!

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