Today, Bon Appétit joins chefs Lucas Sin and Eric Sze in Taiwan to try some of the island’s best beef noodle soup. Beef noodle soup is one of Taiwan’s most popular dishes and is often better enjoyed late at night.
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00:00Welcome to Late Night in Taipei.
00:05I'm here with Chef Eric, Taiwanese chef authority,
00:09general person to hang out with when the night goes on.
00:12We're here at Niu Rou Mian Ji Tang,
00:13famous, proper Taiwanese beef noodle soup place.
00:16Beef noodle soup is the dish in Taiwan, and
00:18in my opinion, it's even better late night.
00:21These guys are busy all night, and
00:22I heard chef is putting on a new batch of soup.
00:24So we're gonna go check it out.
00:25Hello.
00:26Hello.
00:26Hello.
00:27Hello.
00:28Hello.
00:28Hello.
00:30You're still working this late?
00:32No, I'm just busy.
00:34I'm telling you, I really, really, really like your place.
00:37I come here every day.
00:38I come to Taiwan at least three times a week.
00:40Thank you, thank you.
00:41First thing that chef is doing is prepping the base
00:43liquid of his broth.
00:44That liquid is chicken, deep bone, and a little bit of
00:48offal, which is not, as I understand it,
00:49it's strictly traditional.
00:50But it's all going to impart flavor in a clean, sweet way.
00:55The goal here is sweetness and sort of delicacy,
00:59balanced with a thickened texture that comes from
01:02the, that emulsified fat with water.
01:07Just to immerse all of the daikon and
01:09the carrots in the bottom.
01:10That was step one.
01:11Step two, he's gonna activate his aromatics.
01:14Chef is going to start off by melting a little bit of
01:16beef tallow, and he's gonna bring that up to temperature to
01:18extract as much flavor as he can.
01:21Ginger goes in first, just cuz it's a little bit wet.
01:23It's gonna take a little bit more time to extract its
01:24flavor.
01:25You can honestly smell how aromatic it is in this kitchen
01:28before any of this beef has been involved.
01:31It smells so good, it really smells so good.
01:33Yeah, this is the happiest time of the day for me.
01:36It should be when you're eating.
01:37No, no, no,
01:37it's the happiest time of the day when it smells the best.
01:41It smells so good.
01:42The best fat in Taipei.
01:43Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:45Wait, so talk to me.
01:46This is the most traditional cut for beef, right?
01:48Yes, so actually in Taiwan,
01:49the beef shank is one of the most prized cuts.
01:52Beef shank is very large.
01:53Right.
01:54This is the very inner part of the beef shank muscle.
01:57Taiwanese people love it because it has the most sort of
01:59even distribution of fat, collagen, tendon, and meat.
02:02So as you can see,
02:04the intermuscular tendon on this cut is what makes this
02:07beef shank so valuable, especially in Taiwanese cuisine,
02:10and any cuisine that utilizes a lot of raising technique for
02:13beef dishes.
02:14It's actually the too many people throw away.
02:15Yeah, it's actually people that don't think about it.
02:17And in one cut, you get three textures.
02:19You're meaty, fatty, and bouncy from tendon, right?
02:21So this is beef cheek, right?
02:22This, to me, is what makes Niromen Jitang really unique.
02:25Beef cheeks, notoriously difficult to cook, right?
02:27French people cook it for hours and hours in beef bourguignon.
02:30You usually get this in-
02:31No, dude, I barely see this in Taiwan, ever.
02:33I've never really seen beef cheeks in Taiwan growing up.
02:35I tried looking at beef cheeks and I just can't find them.
02:38Yeah, and finally?
02:40Finally, the riblets.
02:41Basically, the fattier part of the short rib.
02:43Everybody loves a good short rib.
02:44That just bursts umami from beef.
02:47You'll see one thick layer of fat, a layer of membrane, and
02:51a little bit of tendon.
02:52It's too chewy for most classic Western preparations.
02:55A very, very underrated part of the cow that's used in a lot of Asian cooking.
02:59And, oh, before we continue, check out the scallions.
03:04Scallions are about to go into the fat as well.
03:06From a scientific perspective,
03:07there are flavors that can be extracted by different solvents.
03:10One is water, another is oil.
03:12And in something like beef noodle soup, it's important to have both.
03:15When you're drinking this soup,
03:16that oil is going to be the top layer of that soup.
03:18And because it's going to be hot,
03:20those aromatic compounds are going to slowly rise from the top of the soup,
03:24go into your nose.
03:25That thin layer of oil is the first interaction,
03:28the first culinary flavor experience of the entire thing.
03:31That's why it's so important to take care, and
03:33every single thing is as flavorful as possible from step number one.
03:38Now we're frying the onions?
03:39Yes, we're frying the onions.
03:40Onion time.
03:42So the onions cook down for
03:43about an hour until they're nice and caramelized.
03:46And this step is essential to creating a broth
03:49that has varied levels of sweetness, and not just sweetness from sugar.
03:53It's been about an hour or so, and
03:55it really resembles the more conventional caramelized onions.
04:00You cannot cheat.
04:01It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes slow heat.
04:07Chef is going to be sautéing his seasonings in the same exact wok.
04:10We're just going to add a little bit more fat, but
04:12we want to keep all of that onion flavor.
04:15This mixture of fermented bean paste,
04:16Chef uses three different types of bean paste.
04:19The Sichuan style fermented bean paste, called Pi Xian Dou Ban.
04:23The more traditional Taiwanese style fermented soybean paste,
04:26called Gang San La Dou Ban.
04:28And the third, Tian Jiu Liang Dou Fu Ru is a sweet rice wine,
04:31Fu Ru, which is a fermented soybean.
04:33Chef, you're a Hakka, right?
04:34Yeah, yeah, my mom is a Hakka.
04:36So Chef's mom is Hakka, and that is his ode to his mother.
04:40As you can see, it has the byproduct of making rice wine,
04:44as well as the soybeans themselves, and the pressed ground soybean.
04:50Wow.
04:51It's salty, but it's sweet.
04:53It has that nice kick of sweetness in the back,
04:57while being very, very savory up front.
04:59It's super, super funky as well.
05:00There's so much sugar inside the bean paste,
05:02if Chef is not constantly agitating it in the wok,
05:05it's going to stick to the bottom and burn immediately.
05:09So this step is going to be ten minutes.
05:11And after, we're going to be adding in the soy sauce.
05:13And then cooking the soy sauce down with the bean paste,
05:16Chef is going to be adding these two sugars.
05:19This is rock sugar, which is a much milder sweetness.
05:22And this is called Tai Tang Er Sha, and it has a much more malty and
05:26molasses-y flavor.
05:27I think Chef's philosophy is to season things with the same ingredient, but
05:31different flavor profiles, right?
05:33So two types of sugar, three types of dou ban.
05:35In goes the beef tallow, scallion, and spices.
05:39We're going to be pouring this entire vat of seasoning into the broth.
05:44And this becomes our base for beef noodle soup.
05:48And now we're going to be adding in the rice wine and the tomatoes.
05:51The tomatoes are skinless.
05:52They go through that painstaking process of poaching tomatoes and
05:56then peeling the skin one by one,
05:57just so there's no bitterness from the skin leaching into the broth.
06:01I'm sitting here, not an expert, but I am excited about
06:05tasting the layers of flavor that Chef has spent so much time building up.
06:10Needs to be beefy, salty, sweet, and
06:12all of it needs to be balanced out with each other.
06:14The general timing of all the beef is the large beef cheeks go in first for
06:19about 30 minutes, and then followed by beef shanks and
06:22the smaller beef cheeks for 20 minutes.
06:24And then finally, the riblets go in for about 10 minutes.
06:26That adds up to one hour, followed by another hour of resting,
06:30totaling two hours of cook time.
06:33And also, the beef needs to be braised to a point where it's tender, but
06:36it's not overly tender, because you can overcook a beef shank.
06:39You can overcook a beef cheek.
06:41It needs to have a structural integrity, not like a steak, but
06:44it needs to fight back a little bit in your mouth, and not just completely give.
06:48What makes food incredible is the attention to detail, and
06:51I want to point out a couple of things.
06:53All the way at the end, you have a noodle cooker.
06:55Chef is very, very proud of that noodle cooker.
06:58It's an expensive machine because it's a Japanese imported machine
07:01that constantly is refreshing the pasta water that that noodle is being cooked in.
07:05If it weren't for this feature,
07:07it would pick up all of this starch from the noodles that were cooked before,
07:10meaning that the noodle gets soggier and soggier and soggier over time.
07:13The second thing is there's a little bit of a thermometer
07:16right above one of the chefs that is keeping the soup at exactly 94 degrees.
07:21At that temperature, with a thin sheen of oil over the top,
07:24you won't run into the issue of too much of that soup evaporating and
07:28that soup getting too salty over time.
07:31The noodles are going to cook for about two minutes.
07:33There are two types of noodles here.
07:35First is a thicker noodle, pure wheat, sort of inspired by the Daoxiaomian from China.
07:41And then there's a slightly yellow,
07:42thinner noodle that has the addition of a little bit of alkaline for a little bit of bounce.
07:46Both are legitimate choices, and everybody has their own preferences.
07:49Bright greens over the top, mostly for color.
07:52First is the shank, second is the cheek, and third, the rib.
07:58One of each, a little bit of tendon, and tripe over the top.
08:02Almost all of the textures that a cow has to offer.
08:06It's beautiful, it's glistening, and
08:08over the top is the soul of the dish, really, the soup.
08:13You see that thin sheen of oil?
08:14That's where all of the aromatics are.
08:15That's where all the brightness is.
08:17Scallions over the top for herbaceousness, and a touch of cilantro.
08:21I'm getting kind of hungry.
08:23Show me how we do this.
08:23Let's order.
08:24So first, grab a ticket.
08:28We're number 220.
08:29Okay. And we grab a menu.
08:31Right here, and a marker.
08:33This entire section is the beef noodle soup section.
08:35Uh-huh. You get to choose the size of your bowl,
08:37the thickness of your noodle, doneness of your noodle, and richness of your broth.
08:41Okay. So, it's a lot.
08:43But, let me just.
08:44I just need the Eric Z special here.
08:46Eric Z special, like all things Eric Z, maximum everything.
08:50Okay.
08:50I love New Orleans Jidam because right now it's past midnight, and
08:54they're still full.
08:55Growing up in Taipei, I've never had a place that serves beef noodle soup
08:59at this quality past midnight, period.
09:02And as a beef noodle soup fanatic, having an establishment like this changes the game.
09:08The whole thing with beef noodle soup is there are all these stories of Chinese
09:11pilots bringing in certain bean paste from certain places, noodles being brought in
09:15from different places, and all these things, and the not consumption of beef,
09:18and now there's a consumption of beef, and all these different stories.
09:20The creation of the beef noodle soup itself seems to be a process of,
09:24I don't want to, I really don't want to use the word fusion,
09:26but it's the bringing together of cultures and influences.
09:29And to continue in that tradition of not being restricted by what you're
09:33influenced by, I think Chef is introducing some really interesting ingredients and
09:36techniques into his beef noodle soup.
09:39They just called our number.
09:40Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
09:43First things first.
09:45Safety is our first priority.
09:46Adhesive disposable bibs from noodle noodle soup.
09:50Wait, wait, wait.
09:51First you try the broth.
09:52If the broth is good, you're in for a treat.
09:56Yum.
09:59It's actually way brighter than I expected.
10:01Yeah. The tomato at the end.
10:03Has a very nice punch to it.
10:04The tomato gives it that like acidity, it lifts the whole thing with the herbaceousness
10:07from the cilantro and the scallions.
10:10And it's quite beefy as well.
10:11But if you want it beefier, on every table is this condiment,
10:17which is a spicy beef tallow, made from the renderings of beef fat.
10:20With chili or?
10:22With chili and a little bit of douban, and often a little bit of sugar.
10:25So the way to do it is dab it into a spoonful of broth.
10:30There we go.
10:31And then you melt it right here, and then you incorporate it into the whole bowl.
10:35Okay, this is quite spicy, right, or not really?
10:37Not really that spicy, it's more beefy.
10:38Let's put it here.
10:40You can almost see the texture.
10:42Immediately you know the noodles are perfectly cooked.
10:45Nice and springy.
10:47So these are the thin alkaline noodles, right?
10:49Yes.
10:49These are the ones that you like?
10:50Yeah.
10:51I'm going to go in.
10:52Okay.
11:05Best thing about eating with a buddy, you get to switch.
11:09I kind of want, Eric was kind of right and I wanted the thin noodles, but here we are.
11:12All aspects of your palate are hit.
11:14Yes.
11:14I'm going to try the beef cheeks.
11:18Whoa, it just like disappears.
11:20It just disintegrates.
11:21It holds up well.
11:22It's like fibers.
11:25Oh goodness.
11:26Yum.
11:27I actually think this is the best cut.
11:28Yeah.
11:29Dude, did you eat my short rib?
11:30Where's my short rib?
11:31Here it is.
11:32This is, it's got little pockets of fat still on it.
11:34It's going to be a little bit bouncy.
11:38Oh, so beefy also.
11:41Oh my goodness.
11:43So good.
11:45Every now and then I have beef noodle soup that really pisses me off.
11:48Right here, it pisses me off because I cannot make a beef noodle soup this good.
11:54Like I have tried, I have tried, I have tried.
11:56It's just everything about it is perfect.
12:00And just imagine a scenario where you're getting out of the club, or you're getting off of a big night with your friends or your buddies,
12:07or you're getting off of a very late night shift, 2 in the morning, you're starving, your last meal was about 16 hours ago.
12:13Yeah.
12:15And you sit down to a bowl of this.
12:16Right.
12:17Dude, I have had enough of your talking.
12:20Dude, it's actually ridiculously good.
12:22Like far exceeding expectations.