Yummy Lan Zhou Hand-Drawn Noodle House (say that 5 times in a row), not to be confused with Nan Zhou, is the latest hand-drawn noodle shop to open in chinatown. Although it would be hilarious if these two shops were next door to each other, alas, they are not. They’re not even around the corner. So it’s not exactly a Vietnam / Vietnam Palace situation or anything. Perhaps they’ve got more of a Penang / Banana Leaf thing going on. In any case, for your chinese noodle hankerings, here’s another option. It’s got a decent sized dining room. There’s a menu full of noodle dishes. You can see into the kitchen and watch them make the noodles.
Here are the hand-drawn noodles in some beef soup. It’s a big bowl filled with sliced beef, a hearthy broth, and a big helping of hand-drawn noodles. You can’t go wrong with this.
I decided to go crazy and get the shaved noodles instead. I didn’t want thin uniform noodles, I wanted some weirdness. The shaved noodles are thicker and in funkier irregular shapes. And I loved it. I think there’s definitely room for more than one hand-pulled noodle house in chinatown. The more the merrier!

Ever since my first visit to Dim Sum Garden, I’d been wanting to come back. And man, come back I did… by ordering way too much food for two people to eat. Maybe even for four. What was I thinking? The server suggested the pan fried soup dumplings, which are new. And how could I possibly say no? They’re just like they sound. Except they didn’t have much soup in them. But they were still pretty awesome. There’s the sweet and savory dumpling sauce and the vinegary ginger sauce. They’re both good, so just go with what you like.
The regular soup dumplings are still good and very soupy. But you can’t let them sit too long or it’ll be hard to get them off the paper. You’re bound to rip the dumpling and lose valuable soup that way.
The vegetable steamed buns are the flour based bread type buns and are filled with a mix of greens, black mushrooms, and tofu. We tried to get the meat filled ones but they were out. These did not seem too fresh. They weren’t particularly warm and they weren’t particularly soft. I think these had been sitting around a bit too long. And let’s face it, the veggies didn’t taste all that great to me.
Here are the pan fried pork and chive dumplings. I really liked these but J did not like the chive part. He is crazy. And we took the leftovers to go and they began to stink a strange stink. My suggestion is to just eat it all while hot and steamy.
Seriously though, there was way too much food even before the noodles came out. We could have probably done with two less dumpling dishes. But there was no way I was not going to order these, because I just love them so. The beef brisket noodles. These are thicker flour noodles and the hunks of beef are sweet, savory, and quite chinese five spicified. They come with some steamed baby bok choy and sprouts and I just can’t get enough of these. Service is ok here. The food just comes out as it’s ready. The flourescent lights can be a bit blinding but you can also entertain yourself watching the people go in and out of the Chinatown bus. But you just can’t beat the food here!

After the miracle berry tasting, we still needed some more food. We went to Han Dynasty, but with slight apprehension about our taste buds being messed up. But you know what? Hot liquid will negate the miracle berry’s effects. So we just doused our mouths with hot tea before the food came out. And oh yeah, don’t worry, that totally did the trick. K can’t do spicy food, like at all, so we asked for the food not spicy. Then Han came around just to make sure that we didn’t want things spicy. So basically, he made everything as not spicy as possible. But well, it was still spicy. But in the Han Dynasty world, it was not spicy. Here’s the dan dan mien. What hasn’t been said about these?They’re awesome.
And these spicy crunchy cucumbers. When I went to the monthly tasting awhile back, I remembered this dish as one of my favorites. I just love this. It’s just a bowl of cucumbers that are spicy and sweet and piquant. And when eaten with rice, it’s almost perfect. It’s almost confusing how flavorful a boring cucumber can become. Thanks Han!