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The Thin Wheat Line: Slurping Impossibly Skinny Noodles at Mike's

MikesNoodles.jpg

This week introduces a new Monday series, in which yours truly sets off in search of Seattle's best noodles.

Noodle: Sui kau and squid ball noodle soup

Source: Mike's Noodle House, 418 Maynard Ave, S., 389-7099. INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT.

Price: $7 for a big bowl with extra greens (bowls start around $4.50).

Sometimes, all a man wants is a bowl of chicken noodle soup. No meat, no bacon-flavored pork stock, no vegetables. That man is not me.

Only if you bring me to Mike's Noodle House can you can whittle me down to chicken stock and noodles, but there have to be some squid balls and sui kau (pronounced sway kow) in the bowl, too.

There are more restaurants in the ID that specialize in Hong Kong noodles than even I suspect, and I've only tasted my way around half of the ones I know about so far. I got stuck at Mike's, and it's the noodle house I keep coming back to. I still find Mike's stock a little salty. But those noodles: not much thicker than hairs, springy and stretchy, a little eggy, they're as much texture as taste. The woman I talked to on the phone says that the restaurant imports its you mien (which simply means "skinny noodle") from Vancouver.

You can get a bowl of just stock with just noodles and a few yellow chives for garnish, but then you're missing the reason most of the people around you are slurping. The cooks will slide some beef brisket into your bowl, but I haven't gotten there yet, because I'm devoted to the sui kau. They're like mutant wontons, bloated, bursting with shrimp and mushrooms, and trailing silky wrappers in the soup as they float around the bowl. And the spongy, bland squid balls are another textural pleasure — they taste like the insides of a chicken nugget, but come from a time when processed meat products were luxuries, not the bottom of the barrel, gastronomically speaking. (Half of the time, you'll find the balls are hollow, with gushy, sweet orange shrimp roe at the center.) The squid balls are the reason you keep a silver-dollar-sized plate of chile paste by your side. It tastes too good to not contain some dried shrimp.

The baby bok choy isn't on the menu, and the waitress only adds it to your order when you make a special request, giving you a little bit of a suspicious look as she writes it down. After all, both you and she know you're just ordering something green to stave off the guilt.

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