Serious Eats: New York
Off the Beaten Path: Noodles With Crispy Meat Sauce from Yun Nan Flavour Snack Shop
Since I live so close to two of the city’s greatest Chinatowns, Elmhurst and Flushing, I hardly ever take the hour-plus subway ride out to the Brooklyn Chinatown in Sunset Park. But when someone raved to me about Yun Nan Flavour Snack I knew had to undertake the trek. After all I’m all about flavor and I love snacks. Plus I’d never heard of any spot in the city that offers fare from China’s southernmost province, which borders Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Even though it required two transfers and the D train was running slower than molasses, I’m glad I made the trip.
What you see here is a No. 13, or Noodles with Crispy Meat Sauce. The name hardly does this stupendous soup justice. Better to call it soft yummy handmade rice noodles with awesome crunchy pork cracklins and strangely intriguing intestine slices. That probably wouldn’t fit on the sign, though. A mere $4.25 bought one of the most interesting and spiciest soups I’ve had in a long while. The noodles themselves were soft and springy and kept company by plenty of crunchy cracklins and the aforementioned rings of pork intestine. There was also a good amount of cilantro, spring onion, and pickled greens to brighten things up. And let’s not forget that incendiary hot sauce. I’m glad I didn’t ask for it really spicy.
While I was slurping down the slippery noodles, and crunching on cracklins, a guy eating there told me he was addicted to that soup and had to eat it every day. I suppose that if I lived in the nabe I, too, would run the risk of falling victim to the lure of Noodles with Crispy Meat Sauce.
Yun Nan Flavour Snack
775A 49th Street, Sunset Park NY11220 (near Eighth Avenue, map)
718-633-3090