Fuzhou Ri Wang Restaurant

If you’re ever in the mood for really cheap hand-pulled noodles, there’s a great shop in Chinatown that serves them for under $6. There’s no English sign, but on East Broadway, I feel like a lot of the shops don’t even bother with an English translation. This noodle shop has a bright yellow sign in Chinese:

As my friend Dorren pointed out, Fuzhou is the province and Ri Wang means “thriving/booming business.” My mom and I went to have some beef noodle soup after grocery shopping in the area and the restaurant does not disappoint. The place is tiny – four of five seats line the walls and there are two beat-up tables that are taken by usuals that love the hand pulled noodles and homemade dumplings. We waited for a table (it seemed like a lot of people were just waiting for take out orders) and ordered the beef noodle soup with beef tendon. The shop owner started working on making the noodles:

He beat the dough on the table a couple of times and finally started cutting the noodles and pulling them apart with his hands. The final product:

Our order came out soon after the noodles were submerged in boiling water:

The noodles tasted like the ramen noodles from Ippudo (but for a quarter of the price!) and the beef broth was surprisingly flavorful (we added pickled vegetables to give it more flavor). Since we shared the noodles, we also ordered some potstickers:

The potstickers were homemade and not too bad (lots of people were picking up frozen bags of 50 to cook at home). Overall, it was a delicious meal for under $10 – not too shabby!