Two Indian chefs travelled across Asia and fell in love with noodles all over again

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There is no single way to make a noodle. In Sichuan, imperfection is part of the craft; in Japan, precision can be measured down to the flour and water. Two chefs travelled to understand these traditions, return with lessons that go well beyond technique.

The shape of flavour

Earlier this year, Chef Rahul Punjabi, Founder of Bang Bang Noodles, spent two weeks travelling through Sichuan, mostly in Chengdu and Chongqing, with a trip to Leshan, exploring its flavours, ingredients and culture. Alongside sharpening his noodle-making skills, he learnt some Mandarin and experienced the Sichuan-hua way of life.

"I met so many cheeky, big-hearted and fun-loving people who are seriously opinionated about their food and how they like to eat and cook. I've experienced that level of stubborn opinion in fine dining throughout my career, where much of the focus is on finesse and appearance, as in Cantonese and Jiangsu cuisine. In Sichuan, there's far more thought and technique devoted to developing flavour, texture and xiang, loosely translated as fragrance."

Punjabi found the noodle culture particularly different from Japan. "In Japan, young apprentices are drilled in technique for years to make perfectly thin, straight and uniform noodles. In Sichuan, the noodles are intentionally rustic, made by craftsmen, not artists, who spend most of their time perfecting the sauces, chilli oils and soups."

He learnt that lesson first-hand with dao xiao mian, or blade-cut noodles. "You hold the dough on your shoulder on a wooden plank and slice ribbons directly into boiling water. After three full days of failing to make decent-looking noodles, I can attest to how hard it is. An apprentice gets a stainless-steel dough scraper and has to bend, sharpen and shape it into their dao. It's a living thing, flexible and adjustable, changing the shape of the eventual noodle. No two chefs make the same-looking noodles because no two dao are the same, and each lao ban has their own preference. Some like them thin in width but thick in height; others flat and wide; some want one side to taper and flare. They're all right because it's their personal cooking philosophy. But they all agreed on one thing: the noodles shouldn't be exactly even and perfect. Where's the fun in that if it all tastes the same?"

The food itself brought another surprise. "I was shocked by how not spicy the food was, despite looking like a megaton bomb. Then I let my guard down and was blown away by the nuclear explosion that is Chongqing huo guo, or hot pot," he laughs.

Across Sichuan and Xi'an, texture and variety are central to noodle culture. "In Sichuan, the sauces are often made with minced meat, chilli oil or mian tang, the cloudy water the noodles are boiled in. So the noodles themselves need to bring texture and a sense of fullness. Think blade-cut noodles, po go mian or blanket noodles, tian shui mian, the super-chunky sweet-water noodles, and thin, round Chongqing xiao mian. In Xi'an, the sauce or soup is much more straightforward. It's a colder area and the ingredients are limited, so they've developed incredible variety in the noodles themselves: biang biang, Lanzhou lamian, chive-leaf-shaped noodles, cat's ears, rolled oat-flour noodles and sandwiched sorghum-flour noodles."

But the culture stayed with him. "It changed my entire philosophy as a chef. I used to chase perfection. Sichuanese chefs showed me that the pursuit of flavour can be even more rewarding, and good food and great company always make for a good time," he signs off.

Crafted to slurp

Chef Lakhan Jethani returned from Bangkok with more than a notebook full of noodle ratios. Four days at the Yamato Noodle Academy, hosted at No Name Noodle, a Michelin-recognised ramen shop, gave him a closer look at the craft, science and culture behind a bowl of Japanese noodles.

"What drew me to Bangkok was that Yamato Noodle Academy from Japan was hosting the class at one of my favourite places in the world, No Name Noodle. The fact that the academy and Chef Shinji Inoue were doing this together was a no-brainer for me. There's another class in November, which I'll go for too."

The workshop brought together around 16 students, many of them chefs and restaurateurs from across the world. "We formed this global ramen community. Someone from Vietnam had a small ramen cart, a chef from China was going to open a ramen shop, and someone from Korea already had a restaurant and was planning another. We started talking about noodles, ramen, what each of us was creating, and sharing our experiences. That community was the most valuable part of the trip."

In Sichuan, the noodles are intentionally rustic, made by craftsmen, not artists, who focus on sauces, chilli oils and soups

For Jethani, the course wasn't about learning a single formula. "There wasn't anything about noodle or ramen making that I had completely not appreciated. I went to learn more, understand different approaches and see how other people use their techniques."

What surprised him was the precision with which some of these variables can be measured. "There are scientific instruments that measure the viscosity of a broth and the stretching of noodles. I don't have these tools in India, but I can send my flour and the water I use to Yamato Academy in Japan. They can test them and give me the exact ratios I need to make good ramen and noodles."

Lakhan Jethani with chef Shinji Inoue

He also came away with a greater appreciation of ageing, something that is central to Japanese food culture but less familiar in Indian noodle-making. "Ageing isn't really part of our rich culinary heritage in India in the same way. In Japan, they age fish, and noodles can also be rested for a period of time so the gluten relaxes. That changes the stretch and allows the noodles to develop more flavour."

Ultimately, the lesson was about intent. "What makes a bowl of Japanese noodles, whether it's ramen or soba, truly memorable is that the noodles are made specifically for what you're going to serve with them. In Japan, it's common to have different noodle textures: soft, chewy or hard. You use different noodles for different broths. If my broth is super-heavy and rich, I'd use a noodle with more flour that can absorb the broth and give you a more satisfying slurp. With a lighter broth, I'd want something silky and softer. That's what you learn: what do you actually want from the noodle? What do you want from that bowl of ramen or soba? Once you have that intent, you can work backwards."

Yet the most lasting lesson may have been less technical. "The biggest gift was the people. My fellow students became family in a matter of days, and the No Name Noodle team welcomed us like old friends. The friendships I made aren't going anywhere. This is a family I'll be coming back to, again and again."