Fried Egg Noodle Soup
Chengdu: City of Gastronomy #2

Jiān dàn miàn – 煎蛋面

Fried egg and fresh tomatoes in a savory broth with noodles.

I can find this dish in maybe every third noodle shop I come across, but I decided to head downtown to Huaxing Street. While most noodle joints will know this dish as jiān dàn miàn or fried egg noodles, the original name, and the one on the card, is Huaxing jiān dàn miàn, named after the very street the soup was invented on.

Honestly, I don’t even know if the original place is still open. I heard this area has been redeveloped and some of the shops have closed or moved.

I’ve spent a good portion of my life raving about eggs, so I’ll spare you my speech about how they’re the perfect food.

This soup is basically a beaten fried egg thrown into a tomato-y noodle-filled broth. There’s a bunch of tomatoes in it and sometimes even some bonus egg pieces.

I don’t know if it can be classified as a vegetarian dish – the broth is likely made with meat – but for a bowl that has no hunks of meat in it, you can’t find anything better.

I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but about 9 years ago I didn’t like tomatoes. That’s right, I was an asshole. Now, I can’t get enough of them. One of my favourite all time dishes is a Chinese dish that’s simply a mix of tomatoes and scrambled eggs. It’s incredible, and this is pretty much the noodle soup version of it.

The tanginess you get from the tomato combined with the salty broth is like a 90s dance mix party in your mouth.

This is almost a perfect lunch, and it only cost 9RMB (about $1.35) for 2 liangs (100 grams) of noodles.

To eat where I ate in the video, head to Huaxing Street Fried Egg Noodles (华兴街煎蛋面) at 45 Huaxing Street (成都市锦江区梓潼桥正街45号附6号). Take the metro line 3 or 4 to the 2nd Chengdu People’s Hospital station and go one block east, then one block south.