Description
The English spelling of the Northern Chinese/Korean noodle called chachiang mein takes many forms. It can be referred to as jajangmyun or even zha jiang mian, but you’ll know you’ve ordered the right dish when you’re served a jet-black sludge that looks like Alaska after the Exxon Valdez. At Garden Grove’s Peking Gourmet, the chachiang mein actually starts as two dishes. The first bowl contains that tarry sauce, a thick, viscous substance made with fermented black bean paste stir fried with microscopic bits of pork and an excessive amount of diced onions now turned translucent. The second bowl holds nothing but pristine white noodle topped with julienned cucumber. Spoonful after chunky spoonful, you pour in the inky stuff from the first bowl to the second, stirring up the tangled mass until every strand is stained black and uniformly coated in that flavorful muck.
