Helping the world's most famous food.
Heji Mutton Chowder is made of fresh mutton, which is repeatedly soaked in a pot, skimmed of blood, put into the whole ingredients, and boiled to perfection. Another refined flour, blended with the right amount of salt and alkali and become soft noodles, after repeated kneading, so that it is tough. Below, put the original broth in the pot, pull the noodles into thin strips into the pot, put the lamb, with cauliflower, fungus, water vermicelli. When served with cilantro, chili oil, sugar, garlic and other small dishes, the flavor is even fresher, and it has become a reputable delicacy in Zhengzhou, and people from outside the city often come to taste it. By the influence of the Heji braised noodles, operating lamb braised noodles state-owned, collective, individual hotels in the city's Chinese streets and cold alleys, people called Zhengzhou "braised noodles city".
Not many people in Zhengzhou have not eaten mutton chowder, love to eat mutton chowder people must have tasted the old Heji chowder. Recently, there has been a small change in the main store of Heji Chowder on People's Road: the waiters here have started to deliver the noodles to the table like most restaurants, and customers don't have to queue up to serve themselves. Among the famous restaurants in Zhengzhou's catering industry, only Heji Chowder Shop has long insisted that customers queue up to serve their own meals.
Speaking of this change, Zhang Weifang of the Heci Chowder House General Store said that this is to improve the quality of service, but the actual effect is not obvious, in the past it is queuing up for the rice, and now it is waiting for a seat. Tiger small black manager here for decades, speak more straight, before the queue also know a few people in front of the heart of the number; now sitting there and so on, when the end up, the heart is not the bottom. It is said that this change, some customers are reluctant, a diner in the field complained: I came all the way to lead a friend to experience the feeling of queuing, but you do not let the queue!
This is true or false, there is no way to investigate, but Heji business is "everyone knows", to Zhengzhou's vernacular: business is good "with the kind", the tone of voice contains envy and jealousy. Every meal time, the people's road of heji chow mein hall will have such a scene: three or five people come in company of familiar customers, split up, some queuing, some buy tickets, some looking for a seat co-ordination arrangement greatly improves the efficiency; a person to come to the trouble, hard to line up to the window of the meal, carefully end out of the chow mein, but can not find a seat, the hand of the chow mein bowl more and more hot, hot people grimace, is really!
Besides Heji, there are several other famous chowder houses in Zhengzhou that often have such scenes.
It's an episode from a comedy show where the person waiting for a seat sees a table almost finished and excitedly greets his companion, "These people are almost finished! Come here." I'm afraid that everyone born before the 1980s has memories of queuing up for dinner and waiting for a seat, but in today's developed food and beverage market, such a phenomenon is rare indeed.
From the 1980s, Zhengzhou's mutton braised noodle museums such as sprouting up, all over the streets and alleys, more than 20 years of this and that, before and after, some thrive, some have been as the day, some such as meteors crossed. But Zhengzhou people eat chow mein hobby is solidly cultivated. It is not an exaggeration to say that Zhengzhou is a chowder city, and it is understood that there are more than 4,600 restaurants in Zhengzhou, counting only those labeled "chowder"!
The origin of chow mein
Ask any Zhengzhou person and he will introduce you to several delicious lamb chow mein, Feng Ji, Flash Ji, Liu Ji, Zhou Ji, Li Ji, Ding Ji, 818, the old four field of many of the old Zhengzhou back from the field, once the train is not rushed home, but straight to the familiar chow mein hall. Zhengzhou people to entertain guests from abroad, taste the local specialties, the first choice is also lamb braised noodles, braised noodles has become a unique regional culture in Zhengzhou.
The bustling chowder hall, whether it is a tall and powerful guy, or a slim girl, in front of a large sea bowl. The first foreign diners, see this bowl will feel a little preemptive, and then look at the bowl of noodles, as if the belt as thick, but also startling. The hot broth is covered with a layer of red chili oil and green cilantro, which will surely make your tongue tingle and your fingers tingle even if you're not hungry. The soup is thick and flavorful, and then the noodles are fresh and tough, which is what Zhengzhou calls "fresh soup and flavorful noodles"
There are different theories about why chow mein was created and flourished in Zhengzhou, but the northern people's preference for noodles is undoubtedly the most important reason. The local saying in Zhengzhou, "Eat noodles in summer, noodles in soup in winter, and noodles in brine when it's not hot or cold," is good evidence of this.
Mr. Lian Chunrong, who has been engaged in reporting on the catering industry in Zhengzhou for many years, and Comrade Li Baosheng of the propaganda and education department of Zhengzhou Catering Company, both said that Master Zhao Rongguang created Heji Chowmein for the first time. But the initial generation of Heji chow mein was master Zhao's "improvisation", and its predecessor was actually a restaurant chef and waiter's work meal.
According to them, Master Zhao Rongguang was born in 1901 in Changyuan County (now in Henan Province), and at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to the famous chef Zhou Wenhan at the Tongtianju Hotel in Kaifeng, Henan Province. Zhao Rongguang was a Han Chinese, but spent most of his life practicing Hui cuisine. He had a personal preference for noodle dishes, especially noodles. During the Anti-Japanese War, restaurants were often closed to avoid air raids, and sometimes the cooks had to rush for their lives just as they picked up their rice bowls. After the air raids, the rice was already cold. Mr. Zhao will be leftover rice and soup braised and then eat. Over time, he found that the re-braised noodles are very tasty, so put some salt in the noodles, alkali and other ingredients, so that the noodles are more gluten, a different flavor, and become the shopkeepers of the main food varieties. Later, some of the old customers found that the shopkeeper ate the noodle aroma, they asked to buy