Zhajiangmian (Fried Sauce Noodles)
Thick wheat noodles topped with a dark sauce of fried soybean paste and diced pork, served with shredded cucumber, bean sprouts and radish that you mix in yourself.
How to eat it
The sauce arrives in a separate small dish and is very salty. Add about half, tip in all the vegetables, mix thoroughly from the bottom up and then adjust with more sauce if needed. A clove of raw garlic on the side is traditional and is eaten between mouthfuls, not mixed in.
The story behind the dish
Fried sauce noodles are the everyday dish of old Beijing households rather than restaurant food. The sauce is made by frying yellow soybean paste slowly with diced pork belly until the oil separates and the paste turns almost black. The vegetable toppings, called "cài mǎ", change with the season: cucumber and radish in summer, cabbage heart and soybeans in winter. Ordering it with eight or more toppings is a modern restaurant flourish; a home bowl has two or three.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.
If you have an allergy or something you can't eat, check with the staff before you order.