As the Hong Kong government cracks down on itinerant vendors, cart noodles (che zai mian) have become hard to find. Yes, you can still get them – but in shops, rather than from the pushcarts that gave them their name.
I developed a fondness for these noodles when I was working as a pastry chef: I’d leave the restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong at around 11pm and, by the time I got home to Kennedy Town, I’d be ravenous. One of the few dining options in those days (long before Kennedy Town was gentrified) was the cart-noodle vendor near where I lived. Although I ate there several times a week, I could vary the bowl by choosing different noodles and toppings. The vendor offered several types of balls (fish, beef, pork and cuttlefish), a few vegetables (seasonal greens, cooked white radish), lots of innards (I suspect this is because they’re cheaper than more standard cuts of meat) and processed ingredients such as miniature hotdogs and luncheon meat.
The vendor would heat the ingredients in one pot of simmering water before putting them into a styrofoam cup and adding a ladleful of broth.
While the broth was flavoured primarily with MSG, you could improve it by picking the right ingredients: I loved to add chicken wings, blocks of pig’s blood and pig intestines or beef tripe. All of these had been simmered in advance, so when the vendor added them to the noodles, she’d include some of their braising liquid, which gave flavour to the broth.
