Saturday, January 11, 2014

Tom Chang loves spicy beef noodles




If there is one thing I’ve learned over the almost two years I worked for Tom Chang at our Silicon Valley startup, MobileIron, it’s this. Tom Chang LOVES spicy beef noodles.  I joined him and our colleague Bennet Woodward as he was he was half way into a 3 day marathon of spicy beef noodle soup eating. Tom had already eaten the same for dinner the night before and was looking forward to eating them again the next day a at his favorite Las Vegas noodle bar at the Venetian Hotel. I’ve eaten those noodles before, at his suggestion, and they are very tasty.  Las Vegas is actually a wonderful place to find authentic Asian food, but I digress. What I actually want to say here is this- Tom Chang loves spicy beef noodles. 


Bennet (left) and Tom (right)-  smiling in anticipation

Silicon Valley Chinese food can be really excellent. The closer you get to the heart of tech and the Asian engineers that actually make the world run, the more authentic Asian choices you are going to find. There are plenty of Asian malls at major intersections just jam-packed with interesting looking restaurants to explore. Ai noodles in Cupertino was in one of those developments with at least 15 restaurants—it would be a great place to do a noodle crawl one day. The first item listed on the menu at Ai noodles is the spicy beef noodle soup, and as we walked in I noticed many people eating it. Here’s a little tip for the uninitiated, when you see  lots of Asian people all eating the same thing in a restaurant, order whatever they are having- you probably can’t go wrong. We started out with a little spicy, garlicky cucumber snack which I always love to order. Make sure you aren't going on a date after eating these.

Spicy cucumbers

Tom also likes a scallion pancake

 The cucumbers are essentially a ubiquitous chinese cruditee-- one of the few vegetables I've seen in the panoply of Chinese cuisine that isn't served cooked. These were tangy and crunchy but not too terribly spicy. They have a very decent scallion pancake here too that is fried just the perfect amount. We topped off the appetizer parade with an order of spicy Sichian Wonton-- I thought these were just OK- the filling seemed to be a little chewy- Charsu BBQ pork perhaps?

Sichuan Wonton - not so special
Finally the piece de résistance arrived- the spicy beef noodle soup. It's offered with thin or thick noodles and all three of us opted for the thick noodles. They had a floury, homemade texture and they were fresh. They were also perfect sopping up the broth. They were served al dente- have I mentioned that gloppy noodles, with a few exceptions like Dan Dan noodles, are gross? 



The main feature- spicy beef noodle soup

Thick homemade noodles perfect for this soup



There was a thin meniscus of oil on the soup but that's nothing to be deterred by, sometimes us soup lovers just need to soldier on. The broth was beefy and just spicy enough that I managed to work up a sweat towards the end of the bowl. Tom was a little disappointed by the beef that day, it had some tendons in it but I actually enjoyed the texture. The meat is supposed to melt in your mouth but I didn't mind that it was a little chewy.  My favorite element of the soup was the noodles themselves- but everything working in concert made a really excellent $7 lunch.  How lucky are we to love food that also happens to be dirt cheap?  In an alternate universe, I wouldn't bat an eyelash to pay $20 for a meal like this. I no longer working for Tom since I changed roles with the new year, but I'd say our noodle future is still very bright. Plus, I continue to kick his ass at Words With Friends, but that's a story for another day.