I wish I had stopped by after these posts that show the Chongqing Street Noodle is actually served with the knife shaved noodles rather than the typical thin noodles.
The waitress was very friendly but not terribly helpful with suggestions when it came to what noodle dish I should try. I ended up choosing the twice-cooked pork with noodle, as mentioned, most of their menu tends toward Sichuan dishes. While I wasn’t terribly impressed by the gloopy bell-pepper laden topping that showed up on my noodles rather than the typical Sichuan prep of leeks and boiled pork belly refried with doubanjiang, it actually made a fairly tasty combo when plenty of the table oil-roasted chilies were added. The noodles themselves had a slightly softer texture than I prefer, and were very uniform in shape, which I imagine comes from shaving with a small, tightly curved device, like this
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfSHKIoh9sq/?hl=en&tagged=knifeshavednoodles
rather than a larger, slightly curved blade that produces greater variety in sizes like this:
In any case, when I go back, I’ll likely order one of the stir-fried noodle dishes, as I prefer that to maintain a bit firmer texture for the noodle.
I will be back–I’m surprised that Oakland Chinatown hasn’t really seen any of the boom in Oakland restaurants that seems to have happened in the last several years. It is still, nearly exclusively, value-oriented Cantonese places. Decent places trying something else, like Chilli Padi and Nan Cafe have come and gone and stalwarts like Chef Lau’s have closed down.
