A fresh take on hand-made noodles

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Dozens of Korean restaurant line Broad Avenue in Palisades Park, above, and some are on the second floor of buildings or enclosed malls, like the one on the right.

Two Korean restaurants, Son Ja Jang and Bunsik Nara, share the same address on Broad Avenue in Palisades Park. 


I walked into the latter in error on Sunday evening, but didn't have to go back out into the rain. A waitress pointed me to a door in the back that leads to Son Ja Jang, a Korean-style Chinese restaurant known for its hand-made noodles.


The simply decorated, L-shaped dining room has only one window -- into the kitchen, and through it you can see a cook stretching and pounding the noodle dough on a counter, loud enough to be heard through a closed door.


I ordered a big bowl of spicy soup with hand-made noodles and seafood ($9.99), and started eating my side dishes, cubed radish kimchi and half-moons of Korean pickles.


Then I saw a waitress deliver two large, divided bowls to men at a table across the way. My waiter said the bowls hold hand-made noodles on one side and seafood or meat on the other, so I know what I'm going to have next time.


My soup had a beautiful, deep-red broth perfectly seasoned with red pepper, and hand-made noodles with shredded vegetables and seafood -- one large mussel, one large clam, a shrimp and several pieces of chewy squid.


This was a deeply satisfying dish and I lifted the bowl to my lips to drain every last drop of the spicy broth. Another seafood noodle soup, labeled "very hot" on the menu, is $10.99, and may be a larger portion.


The noodles were thicker than the hand-made ones at Chinese Mandarin Restaurant, but not as elastic or as chewy. (See post, My order causes a commotion.)


I dipped some of the noodles into a small portion of salty black bean paste that came with my kimchi.


A specialty at Son Ja Jang is jajangmyun -- hand-made noodles bathed in spicy black bean paste with onions and ground meat.


Son Ja Jang Restaurant, 232 Broad Ave., Palisades Park;
 201-944-7777. Look for a sign over a glass door leading
 to doctors' offices. 

My order causes a commotion

Image by Susan NYC via Flickr

A noodle maker like this one is at work in Palisades Park.

What is that racket coming from the kitchen?


Not long after I placed my order, I could hear a pounding behind me. I stopped eating my kimchi and Korean pickles, put down my chopsticks and jumped up.


I walked over to the open kitchen doors and saw a cook, dressed all in white with his arms spread out to the side, holding a thick rope of noodles, then pounding them on the counter in front of him.


I was lured to the Mandarin Chinese Restaurant in Palisades Park on Friday night by signs in second-floor windows: "Hand-made noodles."


The restaurant is across a side street from my favorite soft-tofu restaurant, So Gong Dong.


But the signs don't tell the whole story. When you order the hand-made noodles at this Korean-owned Chinese restaurant, they are made to order.


The restaurant uses hand-made noodles in more than a dozen dishes, including the noodles with spicy bean sauce I ordered ($8.95).


About five minutes after the pounding from the kitchen ended, the waitress brought me a bowl of long, wonderfully elastic and chewy noodles and a smaller bowl of black-bean sauce with onions and, I learned too late, ground beef.


I also got side dishes of cubed radish kimchi, pickles and raw onion, and more bean sauce.


There was too much bean sauce and it was a bit too salty for me, but I finished the hand-made noodles and plan to return to try them in a seafood-and-vegetable sauce or in hot soup.


This simple dinner of noodles, kimchi and pickles proved to be very satisfying, and all I needed a few hours later was fruit and cheese.


The pleasant Chinese decor includes some tables behind screens and others near the windows. 


Broad Avenue in Palisades Park once was a bustling street crowded with families looking for their next restaurant meal, but lately it has a faded look.


There are a surprising number of empty storefronts, including the Orange Tree clothing store, which is being renovated.


The Golden Eagle Diner has been surrounded by plywood walls for months, and any construction seems to have been halted. 


A few blocks away, a glass office-and-retail building is going up on the site of the old post office. 


Mandarin Chinese Restaurant, 110 Broad Ave., 
Second Floor, Palisades Park; 201-313-0121.