Yunnan cross bridge rice noodles 过桥米线

[abcdefg]

I'm leaving in a few days for my annual return to Texas and am saying goodbye to my favorite Kunming people, places, and foods. It's a process I go through every year, but it never gets easier and is always accompanied by an odd sense of sadness and loss. Life is uncertain and my bones are old, so I never know for sure when I'll be back in this sweet spot again.

 

One of my favorite Yunnan meals is Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles, 过桥米线 and I've had it hundreds of times over the last 9 or 10 years. Had it again today at lunch and thought I would show you how it worked and what it looked like. If you visit Yunnan as a tourist, no matter for how brief a time, it's something you should definitely try.

 

It's too much trouble to make at home unless you have a huge family or it's a special occasion, so I never tried to learn. Some things are better enjoyed in a restaurant and you can find it all over Yunnan. Inexpensive, filling, delicious.

 

Ordering can be puzzling, even if your Chinese is fluent. That's because this dish comes in many configurations, and the names don't always convey clear culinary meaning. Need to read the item description or ask what's in it. Failing that, just order by price. But today for example, I had 进士过桥米线, the name of which derives from the term for a successful candidate in the highest imperial examination, a 进士。

 

Legend has it that the dish was invented by the wife of a young scholar, studying in Mengzi 蒙自, in the heart of 红河州。 Here's the Wikipedia version:

 

One story that has gained traction begins with a scholar who was studying hard for his imperial exams on a small island. His wife, who would bring him food, found that by the time she had crossed the bridge to the island the soup would be cold and the noodles were soggy. She then decided to load a large earthen pot with boiling broth with a layer of oil on top that would act as insulation and keep the broth warm. The noodles and other ingredients were kept in separate container, and when she arrived, she mixed the two containers together for a warm soup.

 

Here's a shot of the menu outside the cashier's window:

 

  

 

Sometimes there are pictures, like those on the left, but you cannot always count on it. I ordered the 35 Yuan version. Sometimes I splurge on the 58 Yuan edition that comes with an assortment of wild mushrooms 野生菌 in season.

 

The higher priced versions come with a starter of steam clay pot chicken medicinal soup 气锅鸡, another Yunnan specialty item. It's only a little thing, as you can see from my snapshot which includes my hat for scale. But it's chock full of medicinal seeds, roots and herbs. Served with a tiny plastic spoon.

 

This dish is cooked over steam, not over flame. Notice the hollow center of the clay cooking bowl shown below. This allows steam to come up the middle, gently heat the contents, which then condense on the inside of the tight lid and return to the vessel. This circular process goes on for hours, making the soup very concentrated and mellow. This preparation style is said to have originated in Jianshui 建水 in the time of the Qianlong Emperor (1711 - 1799) 乾隆帝 and most of these cooking bowls, all different sizes, still come from there today.

 

 

The food for your guo qiao mi xian 过桥米线 arrives in three batches, separated by several minutes when they are busy. First you are brought the small dishes that contain the assorted special ingredients for the "package" you have ordered. Today I was there before prime time, and my rice noodles also arrived promptly. Sometimes you have to request them from a different server.

 

     

 

Boiling hot broth is brought by a different waiter, usually a strong young guy, being fetched fresh from a different window on a tray. He usually carries several and they are heavy. Also, this broth must be extremely hot as a matter of food safety. Tremendous amount of bad karma if he splashes some on the backs of the patrons, seated on low stools. 

 

   

 

You first add the thin-sliced raw meats, fish and quail egg 鹌鹑蛋。 Swirl them around with your choptsticks. Next add the raw vegetables, followed by the cooked vegetables and condiments. The last thing to go in is the noodles. Stir vigorously for a while; don't be in too much of a hurry.

 

 

A bench off to the side has additional spices and seasonings. Some garlic chives and cilantro, some pickled greens 酸菜, salt and ground Sichuan peppercorns 花椒。Also vinegar 醋 and soy sauce 酱油。Various spicy pepper oils can be had here as well as nearly-atomic bird's-eye, Thai-style chilies. Otherwise this dish is not spicy hot. You load up a small dish 碟子 as shown.

 

Here are some shots of the second-floor dining area. The bottom floor is for people having standard kinds of rice noodles, faster turnover. This upper level is reserved for people enjoying this more complex dish. They are all set up for it, with stacks of ingredients at the ready and with a huge cauldron of stock bubbling off in a side kitchen.

 

       

 

This particular restaurant is part of a Kunming chain, and I'm fortunate to have one of their outlets just a block or so from my home. They are far from being the only show in town, but they are reliable. English name, which absolutely nobody will recognize if you search for it, is Brothers Jiang. Local story from old timers in the know is that the two brothers quarreled after achieving a modicum of fame and the enterprise was therefore renamed as 桥香园过桥米线。Some shops still have the old name, others have the new one.

 

  

 

When I first came to Kunming, I thought cross-bridge rice noodles might be something put on for the domestic tourists who flock here from Beijing and Shanghai. But much to the contrary, I soon learned that they are immensely popular with locals.

 

 

I ate my fill and still had half a bowl of tasty broth left. You can get it poured into a container to go or you can buy extra rice noodles for a few additional Yuan. People also often buy other side items downstairs to add to their soup or to eat along with them.

 

The folks at the next table to mine had an order of chicken feet, another of steamed congealed pig blood cut into squares 猪血化, plus some chopped deep-fried pig skin. These are strong clues that you are no longer in Kansas, Dorothy, and you can also buy stewed pig feet, slices of boiled pig stomach, and bits of roast pig tail as well. Cold vegetable side items 凉拌 are also available, such as lotus root 藕片, cucumber 派黄瓜, and wood ear mushrooms 木耳。  

 

Definitely suggest you add a Cross-Bridge Rice Noodle stop to your Kunming itinerary. It's even available at the airport for about twice the normal in-town rate.

[laurenth]

Have a nice trip back abcdefg. Your posts are always a joy to read, full of interesting information and true-to-life details - not to mention that they always make me dreadfully hungry.

[lips]

Another great post.

 

Brings back memories of my first trip to Kunming, walking around all by myself, looking for a place to eat.  I came across this 过桥米线 place, which looked small from the outside.  There were four set of prices for each dish.  For the lowest price, you sat at tables set on the sidewalk outside the shop.  Pay a little more, and you got to sit at a table just inside the store.  I chose the next higher tier, which entitled me to sit in a big hall inside, with live dance and music entertainment.  The most expensive prices were for those in the private dining rooms behind closed doors.  What other services could they enjoy I do not know.  The noodles were served plain.  You ordered the other ingredients separately and they were served on small plates.  Two of the delicacies I tried that day were dried worm and grasshoppers. Quite tasty after dipping in the spicy broth.

 

I haven't been back for quite a few years.  Do noodle places like this still exist today?

 

Hope you get to go back and enjoy life there for many more years to come.  I am sure the locals learn from you and enjoy your presence even more than you from them.

[abcdefg]

Thank you, Laurenth and Lips.

 

Worms, grubs, and grasshoppers have gone upscale! Can't find them at the simplest of eateries any more. They typically fry them up fresh so that they are crunchy on the outside but moist and even runny on the inside. I think they also have a rather short shelf life, so cheap places don't like to stock them for "overhead" reasons. Some can be kept alive a few days, but others cannot.

 

This restaurant where I had lunch today, for example, didn't offer them. But yesterday was another matter entirely. Had lunch with my coach (personal trainer at the gym) at a Hani/Pu'er specialty restaurant across town. He wanted to introduce me to the food of his home village, deep southwest, near the border with Burma.

 

Insects were in abundance on the menu, but we had other things instead. (Truth is I don't much care for them even though I realize they are "cool.") Also, they are kind of expensive. I've been told they go well with 白酒 but cannot confirm.

 

At the risk of sidetracking my own thread, I'll slip some photos in here from yesterday's lunch that are not quite substantial enough for a separate discussion.

 

 

Waitresses wore colorful Hani 哈尼族 ethnic garb. Coach is 100% Hani, and he said it was authentic.

 

 

Baby bamboo shoots with a fierce dipping sauce. Steamed. Peel and eat the tender core. Similar flavor to artichoke.

 

 

柠檬撒撇。Mix the thin rice noodles into the bowl of lemon juice and herb sauce. Served cool; not hot. Refreshing and light. This is also a popular first course in 傣味 restaurants.

 

 

Very young banana flowers, cut across the grain into slivers, stir-fried with 韭菜 and wild-picked greens. The banana flower petals were slightly bitter and the wild greens had small nettles, which gave the dish both an interesting flavor 味道 and an unusual texture 口感。

 

 

A "whole chicken" soup which must have had everything except the feathers. Feet, head, entrails, and so on. Cooked in coconut water, mint, and small green chilies.

 

 

Fish served in a mountain of peppers and fresh herbs. It had been quickly fried and then steamed.

 

 

Yours truly with one of the friendly waitresses afterwards outside in the light rain.

[Shelley]

Excellent as usual, thanks for all the pictures and the information.

 

It looks a bit like a variation on hotpot in as much as you cook things at your table.

 

The first picture of the brown bowl with hat looks interesting, has it got a hole in the middle? What's it for?

 

Have a safe trip back to Texas, will you be there for long?, will we have to wait ages for more chinese food delights form you?

 

The waitress's sashes look like they are some kind of amazing embroidery, is it?

[abcdefg]

Thanks, Shelley. The waitress' sash is indeed traditional hand embroidery. Market days in Hani country (south Yunnan) offer a fabulous assortment of textiles. It's one of their glories. They are also renowned for their rice terrace engineering, with their crowning achievement being the famous high mountain fields of Yuanyang 元阳。(Photos not mine.)

 

        

 

You're right, hotpot is made over a burner at the table, whereas in this dish the items to be added are sliced very thin and cooked by contact with the hot soup itself. Some cross bridge rice noodle restaurants tell you to be sure and put the items in one at a time, starting with the raw meats first.

 

I particularly like the long thin yellow flower petals, which I think are a type of chrysanthemum. (Far right in the first snapshot below.)

 

  

 

The hole in the middle of the steamed chicken soup pot 气锅鸡 lets steam heat enter the cooking bowl. This dish is cooked over steam, not over flames. A tight lid is used. As the soup slowly simmers over the course of many hours, it condenses on the inside of the lid and returns to the bowl. Thus it keeps getting more concentrated and thoroughly infused with special herbs, roots, berries and seeds. The combination is considered medicinal.

 

Since the bowl is porous clay, very similar to the material from which Pu'er teapots are made, its flavor also gets progressively complex and refined. Winds up being flavorful but elegant and smooth. Here are a couple of larger illustrations that make it easier to visualize. (Photos not mine.)

 

  

 

What they actually do is stack lots of these clay bowls on top of each other in a staggered array inside a large stoneware vat 坛子 almost 2 meters tall and let them cook over low steam heat half a day or so. Takes lots of practice to get it just right. It's another of those things that I haven't tried to tackle at home.

 

Even though this restaurant makes small individual servings of 气锅鸡, other places also offer larger bowls that feed several diners. Chinese love soup and usually have it with all meals except breakfast. At this time of year, it's common to add mushrooms and even roast chestnuts to the chicken pot.

[Shelley]

That helps a lot, I now understand about the bowl.

 

Those terraces are absolutely amazing.

 

The first picture looks like a Cezanne painting, almost hard to believe is actually real.

 

Thank you again.

[abcdefg]

Those terraces are indeed amazing, Shelley. I've seen them several times and never cease to be bowled over. Most photogenic time to go is coming up soon: late November until early March or so.

 

Rain water is held in high reservoirs and slowly released as needed to trickle down to the terraced fields below. Low mud-wall dikes are carefully maintained to let the water stand and soak into the ground, nourishing the young rice seedlings at one level, then it is released to enter a slightly lower field. They do this over and over, during the growing season, managing moisture levels with great skill.

 

No modern machinery can be used because the system of dykes is too fragile. All labor must be done by hardy humans with strong backs and the occasional water buffalo, slowly slogging along pulling a single-tooth plow after the Autumn harvest.

 

I recall that on several visits, I would find locals here and there, just sitting on a spread out ground cloth high up on a hill, smoking a tall Yunnan water pipe and gazing around, admiring the scene below. Not reading a book or listening to music. Simply enjoying the visual feast. Apparently, they never tire of it. (Photos not mine.)

 

     

 

For the most part these terraced fields are located high in the Ailao Mountains 哀牢山 up to about 3,000 meters elevation. This mountain range cuts across southern Yunnan's Honghe Prefecture 红河州 and where the slope is too steep for rice, they plant tea bushes. In the fertile valleys they grow a particularly rich variety of sugar cane, interspersed with stands of high-grade tobacco. 

[vellocet]

LOL!  Yunnan was the first place I saw people hitting the bong but they were actually smoking tobacco.  Up until that point I had always assumed that smoking tobacco out of a bong was some legal fiction that allowed head shops to stay in business.  

 

Are you really that old?  I thought that work visas ended on your 60th year.  China doesn't have the extensive health care necessary for older foreigners, and they don't want to be responsible when foreigners start dropping off.  

[abcdefg]

Most smaller and medium Kunming restaurants have a few of these water pipes for public use so guests can enjoy an after-meal smoke. People seldom carry them around.

 

Yes, I'm old. Am here on a tourist visa, and not working. Must leave and re-enter every 60 days.

[Alex_Hart]

Excellent posts, abcd! Looks delicious! Makes me all the more ready to trek on down to Yunnan. Also love the stories you include with your posts!

 

Interested in those yellow flowers - looks like something I definitely need to try if I get down there.

 

How long will you be in the states?

[abcdefg]

Thanks, Alex_Hart. I should be back in Kunming late December. If you get down that way for a visit, be sure to let me know. I promise to show you through the market.