This nation's perfect noodle soup is a labour of love
The dish
Taiwanese beef noodle soup
Plate up
Beef noodle soup can mean many things to many people, from pho in Vietnam to Lanzhou noodles in China. If you mention beef noodle soup in Taiwan, however, it can only mean one thing: a large bowl of intense, heady flavours, a perfect balance of umami, salty and sweet, and a local favourite that in just 50 or so years has worked its way to the status of national dish.
The creation of Taiwanese beef noodle soup is laborious: first, a base stock is made with bones and root vegetables. That broth is then spiked with fermented bean paste, caramelised onions, sugar, soy, rice wine, tomatoes, and ginger and green onions fried in oil. Beef shank, and sometimes cheek or ribs, are added and simmered for hours until they have a perfectly tender bite. To assemble, begin with thin wheat noodles similar to Japanese ramen, then add hunks of simmered beef, some tripe, a ladle of powerful stock and finally, chopped green onions and pickled mustard greens.
First serve
The idea for Taiwanese beef noodle soup is thought to have come across from the Sichuan province of China with fleeing Kuomintang veterans in the 1950s. Back then, beef wasn't traditionally eaten in Taiwan – cattle were beasts of burden, not food – and even into the 1970s beef noodle soup wasn't popular, and was mostly confined to military dependents' villages (housing for soldiers and their families). Over time, however, an appetite for beef evolved, as did the soup recipe, with less spice and more balanced sweetness than the Sichuan version.
Order there
Loading
This is considered Taiwan's national dish, so you will find it served everywhere. One of the best, however, is at Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodles in Taipei.
Order here
In Sydney, give this hearty dish a whirl at Sunflower Taiwanese Gourmet (147 Broadway). In Melbourne, try Taiwan Cafe in West Melbourne (instagram.com/taiwancafe.melbourne). And in Brisbane head to Yuan Bao in Sunnybank Hills.
One more thing
Taiwanese beef noodle soup is also popular in mainland China, where it is distinct from its predecessor in Sichuan – though here, it's sometimes known as 'red-braised beef noodle soup', or occasionally as 'California beef noodle soup'.
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The Age
6 hours ago
- The Age
This nation's perfect noodle soup is a labour of love
The dish Taiwanese beef noodle soup Plate up Beef noodle soup can mean many things to many people, from pho in Vietnam to Lanzhou noodles in China. If you mention beef noodle soup in Taiwan, however, it can only mean one thing: a large bowl of intense, heady flavours, a perfect balance of umami, salty and sweet, and a local favourite that in just 50 or so years has worked its way to the status of national dish. The creation of Taiwanese beef noodle soup is laborious: first, a base stock is made with bones and root vegetables. That broth is then spiked with fermented bean paste, caramelised onions, sugar, soy, rice wine, tomatoes, and ginger and green onions fried in oil. Beef shank, and sometimes cheek or ribs, are added and simmered for hours until they have a perfectly tender bite. To assemble, begin with thin wheat noodles similar to Japanese ramen, then add hunks of simmered beef, some tripe, a ladle of powerful stock and finally, chopped green onions and pickled mustard greens. First serve The idea for Taiwanese beef noodle soup is thought to have come across from the Sichuan province of China with fleeing Kuomintang veterans in the 1950s. Back then, beef wasn't traditionally eaten in Taiwan – cattle were beasts of burden, not food – and even into the 1970s beef noodle soup wasn't popular, and was mostly confined to military dependents' villages (housing for soldiers and their families). Over time, however, an appetite for beef evolved, as did the soup recipe, with less spice and more balanced sweetness than the Sichuan version. Order there Loading This is considered Taiwan's national dish, so you will find it served everywhere. One of the best, however, is at Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodles in Taipei. Order here In Sydney, give this hearty dish a whirl at Sunflower Taiwanese Gourmet (147 Broadway). In Melbourne, try Taiwan Cafe in West Melbourne ( And in Brisbane head to Yuan Bao in Sunnybank Hills. One more thing Taiwanese beef noodle soup is also popular in mainland China, where it is distinct from its predecessor in Sichuan – though here, it's sometimes known as 'red-braised beef noodle soup', or occasionally as 'California beef noodle soup'.
Sydney Morning Herald
6 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
This nation's perfect noodle soup is a labour of love
The dish Taiwanese beef noodle soup Plate up Beef noodle soup can mean many things to many people, from pho in Vietnam to Lanzhou noodles in China. If you mention beef noodle soup in Taiwan, however, it can only mean one thing: a large bowl of intense, heady flavours, a perfect balance of umami, salty and sweet, and a local favourite that in just 50 or so years has worked its way to the status of national dish. The creation of Taiwanese beef noodle soup is laborious: first, a base stock is made with bones and root vegetables. That broth is then spiked with fermented bean paste, caramelised onions, sugar, soy, rice wine, tomatoes, and ginger and green onions fried in oil. Beef shank, and sometimes cheek or ribs, are added and simmered for hours until they have a perfectly tender bite. To assemble, begin with thin wheat noodles similar to Japanese ramen, then add hunks of simmered beef, some tripe, a ladle of powerful stock and finally, chopped green onions and pickled mustard greens. First serve The idea for Taiwanese beef noodle soup is thought to have come across from the Sichuan province of China with fleeing Kuomintang veterans in the 1950s. Back then, beef wasn't traditionally eaten in Taiwan – cattle were beasts of burden, not food – and even into the 1970s beef noodle soup wasn't popular, and was mostly confined to military dependents' villages (housing for soldiers and their families). Over time, however, an appetite for beef evolved, as did the soup recipe, with less spice and more balanced sweetness than the Sichuan version. Order there Loading This is considered Taiwan's national dish, so you will find it served everywhere. One of the best, however, is at Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodles in Taipei. Order here In Sydney, give this hearty dish a whirl at Sunflower Taiwanese Gourmet (147 Broadway). In Melbourne, try Taiwan Cafe in West Melbourne ( And in Brisbane head to Yuan Bao in Sunnybank Hills. One more thing Taiwanese beef noodle soup is also popular in mainland China, where it is distinct from its predecessor in Sichuan – though here, it's sometimes known as 'red-braised beef noodle soup', or occasionally as 'California beef noodle soup'.
The Age
3 days ago
- The Age
Phew, it's a girl! The stunning decline of the preference for having boys
Without fanfare, something remarkable has happened. The noxious practice of aborting girls simply for being girls has become dramatically less common. It first became widespread in the late 1980s, as cheap ultrasound machines made it easy to determine the sex of a fetus. Parents who were desperate for a boy but did not want a large family – or, in China, were not allowed one – started routinely terminating females. Globally, among babies born in 2000, a staggering 1.6 million girls were missing from the number you would expect, given the natural sex ratio at birth. This year that number is likely to be 200,000 – and it is still falling. The fading of boy preference in regions where it was strongest has been astonishingly rapid. The natural ratio is about 105 boy babies for every 100 girls; because boys are slightly more likely to die young, this leads to rough parity at reproductive age. The sex ratio at birth, once wildly skewed across Asia, has become more even. In China, it fell from a peak of 117.8 boys per 100 girls in 2006 to 109.8 last year, and in India from 109.6 in 2010 to 106.8. In South Korea it is now completely back to normal, having been a shocking 115.7 in 1990. In 2010 an Economist cover called the mass abortion of girls ' gendercide '. The global decline of this scourge is a blessing. First, it implies an ebbing of the traditions that underpinned it: the stark belief that men matter more and the expectation in some cultures that a daughter will grow up to serve her husband's family, so parents need a son to look after them in old age. Such sexist ideas have not vanished, but evidence that they are fading is welcome. Second, it heralds an easing of the harms caused by surplus men. Sex-selective abortion doomed millions of males to lifelong bachelorhood. Many of these 'bare branches', as they are known in China, resented it intensely. And their fury was socially destabilising, since young, frustrated bachelors are more prone to violence. One study of six Asian countries found that warped sex ratios led to an increase of rape in all of them. Others linked the imbalance to a rise in violent crime in China, along with authoritarian policing to quell it, and to a heightened risk of civil strife or even war in other countries. The fading of boy preference will make much of the world safer. In some regions, meanwhile, a new preference is emerging: for girls. It is far milder. Parents are not aborting boys for being boys. No big country yet has a noticeable surplus of girls. Rather, girl preference can be seen in other measures, such as polls and fertility patterns. Loading Among Japanese couples who want only one child, girls are strongly preferred. Across the world, parents typically want a mix. But in America and Scandinavia, couples are likelier to have more children if their early ones are male, suggesting that more keep trying for a girl than do so for a boy. When seeking to adopt, couples pay extra for a girl. When undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other sex-selection methods in countries where it is legal to choose the sex of the embryo, women increasingly opt for daughters. People prefer girls for all sorts of reasons. Some think they will be easier to bring up, or cherish what they see as feminine traits. In some countries, they may assume that looking after elderly parents is a daughter's job.
