Paris - Dan Dan Noodles Parisien Style

We satisfied our hunger pangs here with dan dan noodles

When we were in Paris we mostly at Asian food, like ramen, soup noodles and dumplings, because those eateries were either still open after the lunch rush, or they happened to be located near where we were, or were good value.

If the place offered Chinese food, they usually had a storefront window where people could see the various dishes laid out like a mini Panda Express to be scooped into takeaway boxes, which was how many non-Chinese ate the food. 

The funky mural drew us into the eatery

Many were owned by mainland Chinese who have lived in Paris for many years. 

After our walking tour around the Latin Quarter, we came upon a Chinese restaurant that had a funky interior inside. Called Tran Tran Zai, one of the walls had a mural with mahjong tiles, bowls of noodles, chili peppers and dumplings, while the ceiling had paper umbrellas hanging upside down.

The small eatery was packed with people, mostly students as it was located near some universities.

We ordered some pork dumplings that were quite large, arranged in a circle with coriander leaves in the middle and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It was definitely hearty and the wrappers were surprisingly thin.

Pork dumplings enveloped in thin wrappers

The bowls of noodles seemed to have the common denominator of having a dan dan peanut spicy sauce in different variations. We had the dan dan noodles with a handful of minced pork on top, then one vegetarian, same flavoured soup base, with cabbage and carrots; tofu would have been nice!

We were also surprised to discover our food was prepared by African immigrants! They seemed very experienced, while the boss was a Chinese guy, and the waitress seemed to be working on her first day in kitten heels navigating her way around the dining space.

Later on I discovered there isn't just one Tran Tran Zai, but five spread around the French capital. The food is pretty good, fills you up and definitely a step up from those takeaway shops.

Dan dan noodles with mild spice level

Tran Tran Zai Pantheon

3 Rue de l'Ecole Polytechnique

75005 Paris

Highlights of the 2023 Michelin Awards

The three-Michelin star restaurants honoured yesterday

Yesterday the latest Michelin star unveiling was held in Macau, the first in-person event in three years.

There were a few surprises, with stalwart Lung King Heen, the Chinese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hong Kong lost a star. I don't find this surprising, as a Singaporean foodie friend went there over a month ago and was not impressed by the quality of the dim sum she ate.

Chef Sato's Ta Vie has been awarded three stars

The other reason is the head chef, Chan Yan-tak is getting on in age. While he claimed to me over a year ago that if he retired he would have nothing to do, perhaps this is a good way for him to bow out and allow someone else to take over the reins.

A shock surprise was French-Japanese restaurant Ta Vie garnering the coveted three stars. Chef Hideaki Sato is a low-key person, but he is extremely passionate about cooking. During the pandemic, he used the time to experiment and even learned how to make Peking duck! Everyday he would make a new one and post it on Instagram.

The rest of us salivated over his pictures of these beautifully roasted ducks, but he would humbly say they were not good enough. Needless to say they were not wasted -- he carved the meat and with the bones made a stock to serve his own handmade ramen.

I was very lucky to try it once and wished I could eat it every week!

Chef Merone of Estro now has one star

Periodically Sato would get visits from chef Cheng Kam-fu who used to be with Celebrity Cuisine and is now at The Demon Celebrity (a partnership with 'Demon chef' Alvin Leung), who would inspect his roast duck and give him some pointers.

Other well-deserved stars include chef Antimo Maria Merone for his restaurant Estro that serves contemporary Italian food. He has thought long and hard about figuring out new ways to present Italian dishes while retaining the traditional taste.

However, one restaurant in Wan Chai, called DHK Seafood Restaurant was given a star, but it had announced it was closing just before the Michelin stars were handed out. As a result no one from the restaurant came to claim the award.

DHK was headed by former chefs of Fook Lam Moon and Guo Fu Lou, but the restaurant had financial difficulties, as staff told HK01 that they had not been paid for months.

DHK was shuttered before it was given a star

A Michelin star probably would not have saved the restaurant either -- greedy landlords would have jacked up the rent, the biggest headache for businesses in Hong Kong way before the pandemic.

A bit embarrassing for Michelin to include a restaurant that has already shuttered, but that just illustrates the precariousness of the industry in Hong Kong, and that its economic revival is a long way off.

Review: Come Back Anytime

Ueda serving his famed soy-based ramen in Bizentei

The other day I watched a documentary called Come Back Anytime, about a husband and wife who own a ramen shop called Bizentei in Tokyo.

It's not about the ramen, but the soup base, where Masamoto Ueda scoops some light soy sauce into a bowl, then adds soup stock made from pork bones, pork ribs, scallions, ginger, and garlic and lets the giant pot simmer all day.

Ueda is well into his 60s and has been making this special soy-based ramen for about 40 years, day in, day out. There's snacks too, like gyoza that he and his wife Kazuko make, and if you're a regular you could get a seasonal treat like pears or mountain yams recently picked from the farm.

Ueda works with his wife Kazuko everyday

And Ueda has a lot of regulars. They passionately explain why they love Bizentei's ramen so much. One musician says he has traveled all over Japan and eats ramen everyday and none of them come close to Bizentei.

That must be music to Ueda's ears, but he is just happy to see satisfied faces of his customers. He said if a female customer unabashedly picked up the bowl to finish the soup, then he knew he she enjoyed her bowl of ramen.

Director John Daschbach and producer Wataru Yamamoto managed to befriend Ueda to get him and his wife to explain how they opened Bizentei and even follow him on his excursions outside of Tokyo to visit not only his own plot of land that he carefully tends to every two weeks, but also invites his regulars to come pick pears and dig up bamboo shoots at other farmers' farms and then enjoy the fruits of their labours.

One scene shows them making rice and then putting ground mountain yam on top which has a gooey kind of texture. Another is making mochi, or Japanese rice cake for the new year, literally pounding rice with a wooden mallet into a sticky dough that is then sliced up into rice cakes. He even incorporates it into his bowl of ramen.

How the couple met is also a cute story, Kazuko falling for a wayward teenager in their senior high school year, but with a lot of patience and luck, he managed to get on the straight and narrow path. Her father owned a noodle shop and suggested the young couple take over. They did and Ueda came up with this special soup stock which has become his calling card ever since.

"There's a big pear over there!" he tells the farmer

But it's not just the food that regulars come for -- it's also to chat with Ueda and the other customers, building a small community that enjoys each other's company, and also lean on for help. 

One woman felt she knew Ueda enough to tell him her father had passed away and cried in the shop; Ueda told her to come back anytime...

The documentary is split into four parts, spring, summer, fall and winter to not only format the story arc, but also show the seasonality of food. The music is jazz and it weaves in and out of the film. At first it seems a bit strange for it to be part of the documentary about a ramen shop, but it lifts the film, giving it more energy and and flourish.

It's not a tear-jerker, but Come Back Anytime is a lovely portrait of a couple just making a living doing what they do best, like the millions of other mom-and-pop shops all over Japan. They are dedicated to their craft, and one can't help but address him as "Master" from his years of life and professional experience.

Come Back Anytime

2021

Directed by John Daschbach

Produced by Wataru Yamamoto

81 mins