Consider the noodle.
Long. Thin. Made of wheat. Made of rice. Hot. Cold. Pasta. Chow Mein. Marco Polo is generally credited with bringing the noodle to Europe, by way of Italy. Most people know noodles come from China, where natives have been eating them for 5,000 years.
Now, consider the state of the noodle in Vegas. There are Vietnamese pho noodles, the pastas of our many Italian restaurants, countless variations in the key of Chinese. And now there is the new Mein Dynasty, where the noodle is, again, king.
Mein Dynasty is in what I call the New Chinatown, part of an expanding universe in, behind and around the confluence of Spring Mountain Road and Valley View. Owner Rebecca Goh is Malaysian, but her cooks are Chinese, either from Taiwan or the mainland, a potentially combustible mixture that works like a charm here.
This is also the first local restaurant to offer a variety of noodle creations in the form of small plates, called "Dynasty Mini Mein," a brilliant conceit. Now, it's possible to order a noodle dish for less than $3. What you will get is an intelligent portion you may want more of but will be content with—in short, an Asian-market street-hawker's portion.
Since we have a steadily increasing number of Asians, sensible eaters they, this strikes me as a smart idea. This also makes Mein Dynasty a perfect place for a light lunch. Just $2.99 buys you "Burning" Mein, either spicy or mild.
Picture a savory meat sauce akin to an Asian Bolognese, made out of minced pork, preserved vegetables, green onions and crushed peanuts, and served over an exquisitely al dente pile of steamy wheat-based noodles. There is no tastier noodle dish in the city.
A dollar more gets you the mini-portion of something called Golden Hook Mein, a funky creation that substitutes dried shrimp and bean sprouts for the meat sauce. In the summer, it's de rigueur to order cold noodles, here done expertly with a pungent sesame sauce, or with spicy shredded chicken. On the bottom of the Mini Mein menu is a killer dish called Red Oil Bombshells, around eight tiny, pork-stuffed dumplings submerged in a bowl of incendiary, peppered oil. Call the fire department, but don't miss them.
It happens that this is far more than just a noodle joint. It's actually a full-fledged Chinese restaurant, with more than 100 items on the menu. Several of the more familiar Cantonese items are on hand, but they are not the main reasons to stop by.
What Mein Dynasty does best, other than the noodles, are Shanghainese cold dishes, northern-style breads and dumplings, and anything with a chili pepper symbol next to it on the menu. The cold dishes are found under the menu heading Dynasty Snacks, and are my favorite non-noodle dishes from this kitchen.
Heading the list is hot and spicy bamboo shoots, at $2.99, an amazing bargain. Indian-style pancake is really Malaysian roti, a stretched flatbread cooked over a flame, delicious with an accompanying curry sauce. Marinated beef shank has the perfume of star anise. I simply can't resist Taiwanese cured-pork sausage with onions, either, a subtly perfumed sausage with a grainy texture.
Mein Dynasty is also strong on vegetarian dishes. Water convolvulus stir-fried with special seafood paste is a mouthful to say and a must to eat. You can call it by its more common name, water spinach, or also hollow vegetable, ong choy or kong kang, but you shouldn't miss it. It's a reedy, flavorful green, only lightly punctuated by the paste.
Then there is the Shanghainese specialty called vegetarian goose, a bean-curd skin wrap filled with a julienne of Chinese vegetables. Dynasty stir-fried green beans, and vegetarian sweet and sour chicken, made from wheat gluten, are also worth a shout. I dare you to tell me that you can tell the chicken dish is made from a substitute.
For those who want the more traditional Chinese dishes, they are treated with care, as well. The kitchen makes a mean, not too sweet, steamed pork bun, for example, and a nice, not too oily, kung pao chicken, which comes loaded with crisp peanuts.
A few of my personal favorites here include stir-fried lamb with green onion; salt-and-pepper fish filet; and Shanghai-style chicken in wine sauce. Culinary adventurers may want to try pork intestine with Sour Mustard, or marinated pig-ear strips. Don't ask.
You may have noticed that many of these dishes are unfamiliar. That's because, until recently, most of them have been off-menu, or altogether unavailable locally. I've eaten many of these dishes in Southern California, which has a huge Chinese population.
I used to go off my noodle looking for them around here, but that's over now.