Sliced Beef Noodle Soup Fortune Noodle

I don't know at exactly what point the lump of dough wielded by the noodle chef at Fortune Noodle House turns into noodles. Watch him sometime through the window to the kitchen and see if you can tell. He cuts a piece of dough, stretches it, twirls it in the air between his hands, then smacks it on the table. Folds and twists again several times, and then suddenly, it's like I've looked away, and the dough has become a rope of bundled noodles. He flips them nonchalantly into boiling water.

A few minutes later, I'm eating pan-fried noodles with beef. It was the first dish I had here one lunch time, and it's the perfect introduction to handmade Chinese noodles. It's a simple dish, with just slivers of beef, onions, carrots and cabbage and a light sauce. So the noodles themselves shine: they're firm but tender, if that's two things that something can be, and at one with the sauce. You could share a plate, but I don't think you'd get as much as you wanted that way.

If you like that firm, slightly chewy bite of them pan-fried, try the sliced noodles. They're not on the menu, but often listed on the specials. These aren't pulled, but sliced directly into the water, and come out thicker, irregularly shaped and springy. Like Chinese spaetzle, sort of. I had these with a somewhat-sweetened egg and tomato sauce that was delicious. You can also get them in soup, though I wasn't crazy about our choice of seafood, with fake crab and tough calamari.

But that was about the only thing less than excellent at this new Chinese restaurant in Clifton. Handmade noodles are just one of several things that distinguish it. Another specialty is the cuisine of northern China, where food is hearty and deeply flavored, with more noodles than rice, and not a lot of seafood (So, maybe not the place to order seafood noodle soup.) Also on offer: ma la bowls, customizable stir-fries with the spicy, numbing flavors of Sichuan pepper. You'll notice the customers, too: mostly they're Chinese students from University of Cincinnati, just across the street.

We tried boil-cooked pork belly; a rich stew with cabbage and pork – obviously a winter dish – with ingredients that are rich and a little bland, but the cabbage has a sour tang, and there's a lovely aroma of star anise in the broth. Northern-cooked sweet and sour pork is like the Chinese-American classic, with deep-fried bits of pork and a candy-sweet, vinegar-sour orange sauce, but the pieces were bigger, the deep-fried coating less thick.

We had two dishes flavored with cumin: one was stir-fried lamb with carrots and pepper, every bite crunchy with tiny whole cumin seeds, two strong flavors matching each other. Thin-sliced potatoes are also served pan-fried, with just as much cumin, like highly-flavored home fries  A staple dish of this regional cooking is stir-fried eggplant, potato and pepper. The eggplant, especially, soaks up sauce to become deliciously soft and creamy, and the dish sits in a pool of oil (which I assume it's supposed to).

There are lots of hard-working servers, though service is a little haphazard. Many are Chinese students still learning English. We had one communication muddle. To order the ma la bowl, you circle what you want on a list of ingredients. My friend had chosen tofu and lotus root and shrimp and a few other things, and the server asked his heat preference. He said spicy. The server was taken aback. OK, then medium, said my friend. I'll give it to you mild, said the server. And it came with a different combination of ingredients than he thought he was getting. Mild was, in fact, pretty spicy, with enough of the Sichuan pepper to numb the mouth a little and make it tingle.

The shrimp were head-on, in the shell, transparent rice noodles were a great vehicle for the sauce, and the cauliflower and broccoli and peanuts made a harmonious combination. Lots of fresh cilantro on top added its own distinctive flavor to the medley, making an exciting bowl of food. Rice is served on the side. You could get a lot more exotic with choices, from kelp knots to beef tripe and fish tofu.

There are distinctive appetizers, too. No egg rolls, no wontons. There's pig ears, though! I got a tea egg, which is a hard-boiled egg cracked, then cooked in a five-spice flavored dark broth, so the egg looks like marble. Cold beef is pretty good if you cover it completely with the spicy sauce it comes with, but I think it's one of those cultural differences in texture preferences: it seems unappetizingly hard and cold to me. Better is the sliced chicken in a different kind of spicy sauce.

You don't have to be super-adventurous to eat here; anyone would love those pan-fried noodles, and there are some familiar dishes like sesame chicken and braised pork with rice. And everything is priced below $15. But if you're interested in expanding your horizons, don't waste time getting here.

P.S. if you want to try the noodles at their very best, eat them there rather than taking them home.

Fortune Noodle House

3 stars: (Food is great; service still needs work, atmosphere is plain, no beer or wine.)

Where: 349 Calhoun St., Clifton Heights

When: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday

Prices: Appetizers $6.99-$7.99; noodles $8.99-$10.99; ma la stir-fry $1.49-$2.79 per ingredient (five minimum), entrees $7.99 - $14.99

Vegetarian choices: Excellent: tomato and egg sauce, veggie fried rice or noodles, ma la bowl, spicy tofu bowl, stir-fried potatoes, etc.

Reservations: not needed, but it gets crowded

Miscellaneous: Take-out, accessible to disabled, no liquor license

Phone: 513-281-1800

Web: www.fortunenoodles.com

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Source: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/dining/polly%27s%20reviews/2016/04/13/review-fortune-noodle-house-makes-their-own/82889268/