Restaurant: 苏氏牛肉面 (Sushi Beef Noodle)
City: All major cities in Northern China

For dinner, we went to a restaurant chain a local pastor recommended. The Chinese name ‘苏氏牛肉面’ translates to Su’s Beef Noodles. However, they made the English name a combination of Pinyin and translation. The first two characters have the Pinyin of “Su Shi” while the last three characters translate into “Beef Noodle” to form “Sushi Beef Noodle”.

Contrary to its English name, the restaurant does not serve sushi or Japanese food. They serve beef noodle soup, hotpot, and bread. Sushi Beef Noodle started in Urumqi, in Northwestern China and close to Mongolia, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Then it spread to Northeastern China and Inner Mongolia.

Sushi Beef Noodle is a very popular restaurant chain. All the tables were taken when we went to one across our hotel in Shenyang! This restaurant had two levels; the beef noodle soups and baked goods were eaten on the lower level while the hot pot was served on the upper level.

I had 三宝牛肉麵 (Three Treasures Beef Noodle Soup). As the name explains, there were three different types of beef in the noodle soup. This particular dish had wide noodles; some of the other dishes offered had thin round noodles. All noodles were flour based.

Doesn’t this noodle soup look like the Vietnamese noodle soup (phở) with a Chinese fusion? That was my impression when I got my bowl!

Remember how I mentioned Sushi Beef Noodle also has bread? There’s a small bakery inside the restaurant and they had a small selection of baked breads. We got three pieces of bread. The flatter ones had red bean paste filling, while the spiral bread had pieces of Chinese herbs in it.