'Bang, pull, fold, repeat': Hand-pulled noodles are the star at this downtown eatery
GB Hand-Pulled Noodles is at 66 Edward Street in Toronto
The first time I had Lanzhou-style lamian I was barely out of high school.
A small group of us ventured through Pacific Mall in Markham, Ont., one weekend afternoon.
After shopping for electronics we headed into the food court upstairs for lunch.
The food court was rite of passage growing up. Everyone I knew would go to Pacific Mall just to eat, and everyone had their favourite vendor.
Compared to other indoor plazas, Pacific Mall's food court is tiny, with narrow hallways that lead you through a network of mom-and-pop shops.
Every vendor had a regional specialty. The food felt foreign at first, from the way dishes looked to the way they tasted.
One of my earliest memories was of a noodle vendor making hand-pulled noodles, called lamian.
As soon as I was within a few feet of the food court I could hear him bang large pipes of dough on a makeshift metal counter near the cash register.
Bang, pull, fold, and repeat.
And then, with lighting speed, the cook tossed a curtain of noodles into boiling water, and within seconds it was sitting in a bowl of dark brown stock in front of me.
I had a predilection for pho in those days, but I soon fell in love with the lamian. The noodles looked different — they came in various shapes and sizes, and they had a bouncy, chewy texture with the soup clinging to it. It was an addicting experience.
It's all about the noodles
Good lamian is hard to come by in this city and there are a few reasons why.
Unlike pho or ramen, where the broth is the real star, lamian is all about the noodles.
With pho or ramen, you can cheat by purchasing pre-made noodles. But if you want to create a proper Lanzhou noodle soup, you had better learn how to make noodles by hand — the way they've been doing it for over a century in Lanzhou.
I was pleasantly surprised when I visited GB Hand-pulled Noodles when it first opened just over a year ago near Bay and Dundas streets in downtown Toronto.
It was a cold spring morning when I stepped into the restaurant and that familiar banging sound was the first thing I heard when I entered the room.
Behind a glass screen at the front of the restaurant, chef Zhiqiang Li worked the noodle station.
He massaged and stretched large cylinders of dough in a trance-like state before swinging them up in the air and slamming them back down against the table.
Within seconds he was looping smaller strands with his fingers, pulling them with ease and smacking them down repeatedly.
He then casually tossed the curtain of noodles over his shoulder into a large pot of boiling water behind him.
The presentation is mesmerizing. You could watch him make noodles for hours as he switches between various thickness levels.
'Noodle is our life'
Li owns and operates GB Hand-Pulled Noodles with his wife Alina Bai, who runs the front of the house.
At GB their specialty is lamian from Lanzhou, their hometown in the province of Gansu.
"In Lanzhou, there are noodle shops everywhere. There are thousands of them. You cannot walk one block without seeing one. Noodle is our life," Bai said.
To Bai, lamian is a family tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation in her family, going back a century.
Li and Bai met in grade school in Lanzhou.
Although Li's first career was in IT, he explained that it was his desire to learn and preserve the lamian tradition that Bai's family was so proud of. With her permission he spent close to five years learning the intrinsic technique.
At first, there was no intention of opening a restaurant. Li, who is not a trained chef, says he just wanted to "preserve and extend" the tradition.
In 2015, the couple moved to Toronto after a short stay in Montreal.
"We visited Toronto and we liked it better so we moved here," she said. "Then we decided, 'OK, let's open a noodle shop.'"
To Bai and Li, GB is their dream come true. A chance to preserve family tradition and share it with hungry customers.
Although the shop is just a short distance away from the Eaton Centre, GB is still tucked away from the hustle and bustle. It's on Edward Street behind the Atrium shopping mall.
It's a tiny restaurant with a small menu, but it has quickly found a following with students from Ryerson University, which is nearby.
The menu is tightly constructed. You can choose between a few different types of noodle bowls: pork, beef, or vegetable.
Each bowl comes with an assortment of vegetables: bok choy, sliced turnip, julienned carrots and cucumbers.
You choose your noodle type — GB has seven varieties: super thin, thin, narrow thick, thick, flat, medium wide and extremely wide. You can have them with or without soup.
Opt for thicker noodles
During my first few visits I had a hard time choosing the noodle type, so here are some tips.
If you prefer a very soft and delicate noodle — akin to store-bought noodle packets — go for super thin. But honestly, it's the least interesting noodle. As you go thicker, the noodles will show more bounce and a chewy texture, and they also help the soup cling on to them. Similar to Italian pasta, if you like rich, meaty sauces served with long ribbons of pasta like pappardelle, then order "flat" or "extremely wide" to get maximize cling.
Finish your order by specifying that you would like the chilli oil on top of the soup — a house-made concoction of chillies and peppercorns, which brings some complexity along with a formidable amount of heat.
I was instructed early on that one doesn't just eat noodle soup at GB — the sides also demand some attention.
Li has a menu of a dozen cold sides that complement the soups very well. My favourites are the Niu Zhan — spicy beef shank. The entire shank is boiled for five hours, then sliced very thin like cold cuts.
The tender meat is tossed in the same chilli oil.
Also, try the spicy cucumbers. The dish consists of roughly chopped cucumbers are coated liberally in the same chilli oil.
Finally, try the cold, thinly sliced jellyfish, which is marinated in a sweet and sour sauce.
In my opinion, switching between long slurps of warm noodle soup and the cold side dishes is the complete GB experience.
GB Hand-Pulled Noodles is at 66 Edward Street in Toronto.
Suresh Doss's weekly food segment airs every Thursday on Metro Morning. Watch for video of his jaunts across the city on CBC Toronto's Facebook page.
Do you know a GTA restaurant that Doss should visit? Tweet us @metromorning or send us a message on Facebook. And if you try any of the places he features, we want to see photos!
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