Mention the words “noodle house” and I start slobbering. There’s nothing quite like the anticipatory pleasure of staring into a bowl of squiggly starch: the digging in, the reckless abandon of slurping, the tail end of udon, lo mein or linguini lashing a cheek, the deep satisfaction of corralling unruly sustenance.
In a world increasingly dumbstruck by lux, bedazzled by gold-flaked nigiri and studied plates blanketed in a haze of dry-ice smoke, noodles remain wonderfully anomalous — simple, cheap and ever-popular; enjoyed for thousands of years. Our timeless, universal love of noodles goes beyond the sensory and ritual; there’s science to it. Studies show eating them can stimulate endorphins and serotonin — can literally create happiness. And restaurants dedicated to food that makes you happy? My type of Zoloft.
Although Chinese noodle house Ji Bei Chuan may be new to Orlando, it’s far from new; the franchise boasts over 400 locations in China and 50-plus in the U.S. It’s also far from (my) home: in the Lake Buena Vista area, where the buena vista is of I-4, where Ji Bei Chuan sits tucked in a fresh-out-of-the-box strip center, and where the noodle-sparked endorphins to be had inside proved a necessary counter to the cortisol generated getting there.
Ji Bei Chuan rides a bit of an otaku arcade vibe with its Kaws statues, rope neon and plushy claw machine, but the name of its game is mi xian, smooth and slippery Yunnan rice noodles. While the menu is largely anchored in Chinese big-bowl soups, it also features nods to Korea, Japan and Thailand, the last unsurprising as the Dai minority of Yunnan are ancestors of the modern-day Thai.
Before noodles there were nibbles. We opted for Korean fried chicken wings ($8) and takoyaki ($5.99). The wings proved tasty and, true to Korean form, far lighter than the batter visually suggested. The octopus balls benefited greatly from a topper of shaved bonito and were an agreeably chewy exercise in texture, but I’m not sure we’d order either or any of the advance eats again. No need to cede belly room best filled by soup.
Ji Bei Chuan is synonymous with chicken and fish maw rice noodle soup ($16.50). For the uninitiated, fish maw is reconstituted swim bladder — a collagen-rich innard that serves much like tofu in that it has little flavor of its own. A bit like the soup itself. Studded with corn, cloud ear mushroom, pieces of chicken and maw, we found it pleasingly rich but overly mellow, the chicken-ness of the broth only surfacing when the soup had largely cooled.
This was not the case with fish and sauerkraut rice noodle soup ($13.50), which popped with the vinegary tang of fermented greens and peppery spice. Likewise, a basic rendition of roast duck ramen ($18) was flavor-forward, featuring a quarter of regrettably chewy-skinned bird heady with five-spice in a creamy broth with soy egg, enjoyed with a caveat — the entire spectrum of roast duck ramen is pretty enjoyable.
Finally, because the word mala also makes me slobber, a mala-spiced soup with beef slices and rice noodles ($14.50) made its way to table. The bland beef shavings swam in a punchy broth that would’ve benefited from more ma (numbing) to balance the la (spicy).
With all the soups, we found noodles did what noodles do (make us happy) while broths were basic but prime foundations for doctoring with Ji Bei Chuan’s table vinegar sauce or roasted chili oil, canvases on which to paint your preferred taste. This is simple, satisfying fare — an easy, solid bang-for-your-buck option if you live in the area, but not one exciting enough to pull you across town.
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