Mung Bean Noodle Salad - for a hot summer night

Hi,

Summer's sodden weather is close at hand. I just don't welcome the wilted hair, clingy clothes and chairs that stick to my skin. I need distraction from my misery, and I expect you do too, which a cool meal of Mung Bean Salad will provide.

"Would you like to breath deep the air from the Mongolian desert this evening?" was the opening to suggesting dining at Dragon King, a Manchurian restaurant in the Chinatown Mall. A new menu and a new region to explore, my joys in life are simple. The first item to spring off the page was 'Chef's Special Noodle Skin' which is also referred to Mung Bean Noodle Salad. Not obtaining a clear description from the waiter what it was, we absolutely had to try it.

The basis for this salad are the Mung Bean Noodles, which we learned subsequently at Ed's Potsticker House, are made fresh to order from Mung Bean Powder. The mung bean powder is reconstituted, then the mixture is spread out, cut into wide strips, boiled and once finished are quenched in ice water to stop the cooking process. The finished noodles are slippery, thick and quite elastic making them challenging to chew.

At Dragon King, the salad arrives on a platter with the noodles on the bottom with artfully arranged pork strips, slivered bamboo shoots, slivered carrots, green onions, ect. Accompanying this are four little pots filled with freshly prepared mustard, tahini (sesame) sauce, Chinese black vinegar and soy sauce. Not being remotely acquainted with this salad, we asked the waiter to prepare it at the table. He dumped everything in, and then proceeded to toss the salad. Our first taste revealed sparkling flavors and texture contrasts one does not usually encounter. The fresh mustard immediately causes your nose to tingle like a strong horseradish, but any super sharpness is dampened by the creamy tahini and twang of the black vinegar. The noodles slip around your mouth as you make feeble attempts to chew, before they get away and slip down your throat. You could almost imagine them screaming with laughter having escaped my torture again. Quite a new sensation.

My desire to revisit Mung Bean Salad was awaken after having a particularly bad version a few weeks ago at Great Sea Chinese Restaurant. Very few noodles, a lot of slivered carrots and cabbage, and tasteless sauce already incorporated in the kitchen. As G Wiv attests

To me Great Sea is a one dish restaurant and I, and most all of their customers, order the fried chicken with sauce. The version at Great Sea is plump, crispy frenched chicken wing drumetts served in an oily scallion, chili sauce with slightly sweet undertones. The fried chicken with sauce tastes a lot better than my description reads and is their version of a popular Korean snack that can be found at most Korean groceries.

Friday and Saturday evenings, I revisited Dragon King and Ed's Potsticker House to try their Mung Bean Salads back-to-back. Presently, I favor Dragon King's variant over all however I had a conversation with the waitress at Ed's which leads me to believe both are really neck-and-neck.

The Ed's Potsticker House variant came to the table with the dressing already incorporated with the meat and vegetables arranged on top. The sauce was not as dynamic as our Dragon King dump-everything-in dressing. I showed the tall-skinny waitress the Dragon King menu; she confirmed it is the same Mung Bean Salad I ordered at Ed's. I then outlined the presentation at Dragon King with all the little pots allowing you to make your salad to taste, which she stated is the classic presentation in China. I very politely informed her the dressing on Ed's version was a bit weak compared to what I achieved at Dragon King. She acknowledged Chinese clients ask her to prepare it to taste but she offered this is difficult to do because how can you judge anyone's taste? I suggested maybe they consider allowing the customer to prepare their own dressing at the table. She liked the idea of presenting the pots with the dressing elements and will very likely do so in the future.

I'm waiting for that humid day which sends me over the top and into Chicago for some Mung Bean Salad, which is served tepid to cold. A fine, light summer meal on your hottest day.

Regards,
Cathy2

Ed's Potsticker House
3139 S. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL
(312) 326-6898

Dragon King
2138 South Archer Avenue
Chicago, IL 60616
Tel: 312/881-0168

Great Sea Chinese Restaurant
3254 W Lawrence
Chicago, IL, 60625
773-478-9129

*Bei kuo ta la pi at 9.95
I am dying to try this dish. Bei = north, kuo = world; bei kuo = northern world. Ta la pi = mung bean jelly. This is a celebrated summertime dish of Beijing (listed in the Chinese menu under the category of "ling pan" = cold dishes). I think that there is some relation between this bean starch jelly and the cheong po mook used by the Koreans in the dish tang pyeong chae. I did a google search and found a J Gold review (from 1999, of a place called J.Y.Z. Cafe in San Gabriel) that mentions a cold jelly dish in passing. He mentions wasabi among the elements of the dressing of this "salad" but I think that normally it is just a mustard/sesame paste. Typically, ta la pi should be a "composed plate" of jelly strips, pork, cucumber, other vegetables, perhaps some fungus (of the cloud ear sort).

I just found this post by RST: http://www.chowhound.com/midwest/boards/chicago3/messages/19070.html