Hip noodles for noodlies, Sydney food blog

• fashion forward food
• bantam vs rockabilly hair
• hot and sour noodlies

You’ll be glad to hear the noodles aren’t particularly twisted, much. Though it is trying hard to stand out from the usual cheap-and-cheerful eateries in Chinatown – no plastic grapes dangling from the ceiling here, it’s funky red chairs, ebony choppies and toe tapping Mando pop.

The young and impossibly slender Chinese staff strut the restaurant catwalk, slinking about in black uniform,  taking orders on mobile devices. The kitchen staff are less trendy but that doesn’t stop one cook from sporting blond hair that sprouts forth bantam-like. It’s not there on the Lady Gaga hip scale but at least the staff have fun trying, which is a good thing because there’s no attitude here, the staff are actually friendly and helpful.

“The young and impossibly slender Chinese staff strut the restaurant catwalk, slinking about in black uniform…”

There’s some sort of hipness competition between the staff and customers – the lad at the table to my right is also in all black. He wins in my trendy books because he’s not wearing socks and has long jet black hair slick back rockabilly style. A couple of tables away two leggy Chinese girls with flowing hair and flawless make up (though the lippy is just too red) chat demurely and continuously, pausing only to reach inside their large exxy looking handbags for a liptstick, mobile phone or tissue.

“A steal at $11.80, this is cheap-and-cheerful without cramp seats and uber low-rent surrounds”

twisted noodle bar (written in all lowercap hipness) specialty is #5 Yunnan noodles, it’s the best known dish from this most southwestern province of China, though the West is more likely to have heard of the region’s other export – pu’er tea. Traditionally this dish is more like a hot pot with bubbling sour and spicy broth for you to dip meats and vegetables. The twist at twisted noodle bar is that they combine everything in one convenient bowl, hence several types of meats: pork, pork mince, beef as well as tofu, egg, preserved Chinese vegetables and rice noodles. Make sure you mix everything through and bring some gum – you’ll be burping chives for a while after.  Select from five levels of spiciness and four levels of sourness.  It comes with sausage and a piece of fried chicken on the side.  A steal at $11.80, this is cheap-and-cheerful without cramp seats and uber low-rent surrounds.

Twisted is apt – this bowl’s different, chilli oil spicy and preserved Chinese vegetable sour, plenty hearty and full of flavour and textures. It’s a bowl for the noodle weary – you’ve had the aromatic pho, thick ramen, lemongrass laksa and plain egg noodle soup – Yunnan noodles is something else again. There are 11 different types of soup noodles with different toppings, named after regions in Yunnan and surrounds like #6 Lijiang: chicken wings, #8 Sheung Wan: beef and radish and #2 Kungming: pork.

If you reckon noodles won’t fill you up choose from 21 different sides – from the safe; fried chicken breast, marinated beef through to the challenging; pig blood with chives which is very popular and fried salmon head.

As much as they try, twisted noodle bar is more cute than hip, more friendly than attitude – which is a good thing, allowing us to appreciate those twisted noodles and pig blood.

twisted noodle bar – Chinatown
Shop 44/1 Dixon St, Haymarket
(02) 9267 2327

twisted noodle bar – Hurstville (new)
340 Forest Rd, Hurstville
(02) 9586 3332