Connect with us

Boston, MA

Zhi Wei Cafe Highlights Northwestern Chinese Lanzhou Noodles

Published

on

Zhi Wei Cafe Highlights Northwestern Chinese Lanzhou Noodles


News

Now open in Boston’s Leather District, the restaurant highlights Lanzhou beef noodle soup, tender lamb chops, and plump soup dumplings.


Lanzhou beef noodle soup at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Advertisement

In the pandemic’s early days, Jin Tan, founder of the new Boston restaurant Zhi Wei Cafe, spent two years traveling China, tasting all different kinds of foods. “I was thinking, ‘What should I bring back to Boston?’” he says now. “I brought back the Lanzhou noodle.”

Interior of a restaurant with a glossy wooden floor and banquette. A small raised section in the front looks out onto the sunny street.

Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Overhead view of two skewers of grilled lamb chunks in a spicy red powder on a rectangular plate.

Barbecue lamb skewers at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

These chewy, silky noodles hail from northwest China, virtually the opposite side of the country from Tan’s Guangdong region hometown in the south, where he started working at his parents’ restaurant at the age of seven. But the noodles are known throughout the country, having spread far and wide: “Langzhou noodles in China are like McDonald’s in the United States,” says Tan. In Boston, though? They’re a rarity.

A hand dips a stick of fried dough into a bowl of a creamy white liquid.

Fried dough sticks with house-made soy milk at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Advertisement

While we’re lucky to have quite a few local spots where you can enjoy another popular northwestern Chinese noodle, Xi’an-style biang biang noodles, those tend to be thick and wide, often seasoned liberally with chili and garlic. You’ll have a tougher time finding Lanzhou noodles in the Boston area. They’re usually thinner—although several widths are acceptable in this style—and more delicate, often served in a clear broth embellished with thinly sliced beef, daikon, cilantro, and chili oil. This so-called Lanzhou beef noodle soup is a signature dish of the region.

Art on the wall at a Chinese restaurant, featuring a man putting long noodles into a bowl from a large pot.

Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

A wooden steamer basket is open to reveal four soup dumplings.

Soup dumplings at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Zhi Wei Cafe—nestled in downtown Boston’s petite, South Station-adjacent Leather District—is the culmination of Tan’s hard work and desire to open a family business like his parents did. After spending his childhood in their restaurant, he came to the United States to attend UMass Amherst, working in restaurants during his college years and beyond. Now, he has Zhi Wei Cafe. “It’s really bringing it back to a family-owned restaurant,” says Lisa (Mei) Tan, Jin’s sister, who manages the restaurant. “That’s what he’s creating with Zhi Wei Cafe.”

A hand holds up a black plate with two halves of a scallion pancake rollup stacked atop each other, stuffed with beef, cucumber, and carrot.

Beef pancakes at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Advertisement

The restaurant, a cozy destination with sleek wooden accents and a sunny mezzanine with street views, makes its noodles in-house daily. “The traditional noodle-making process involves skillful hand-pulling,” says Jin Tan, “where our expert chefs stretch and fold the dough repeatedly to create the ideal texture.” They’re bathed in a steaming bowl of a fragrant chicken- and beef-based broth that’s cooked for eight to ten hours, with a generous serving of chili oil adding a slow-building heat.

Overhead view of a noodle and shrimp dish surrounded by scallion pancake rollups, fried dough, a noodle soup, and more.

Stir-fried noodles with shrimp at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Four lamb chops sit on a blue floral rectangular plate with a small black bowl of a fiery red chili powder.

Hand-pulled lamb chops at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

The menu is also stacked with other delights, including a few lamb dishes; lamb is commonly found in the Muslim-influenced cuisines of northwestern China. At Zhi Wei Cafe, don’t miss the hand-pulled lamb chops, slow-cooked and so tender that you can easily pull the meat off the bone—hence the name. “In Boston, we haven’t tried or seen anything like our lamb chops,” says Lisa Tan. The barbecue lamb skewers, sprinkled with fiery red seasoning, are also notable, or try the beef or chicken wing version of the dish. Other must-tries include beef wrapped up in scallion pancakes with carrots and cucumber; exceptional soup dumplings, made from scratch in-house; crispy fried dough sticks meant to be dipped into warm house-made soy milk; and osmanthus iced jelly for dessert.

Overhead view of a bowl of a Chinese dessert, a clear jelly with ice cubes, sesame seeds, and dried floral bits.

Osmanthus iced jelly at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Advertisement

Zhi Wei Cafe’s name comes from the phrase “most delicious,” and the team is certainly off to a strong start since opening earlier this summer. But stay tuned, because there’s more to come—like ice-boiled lamb hot pot, a take on hot pot that is less spicy than most, slated for an early September introduction. For now, head to South Street for hearty bowls of noodles made with care.

A decorative hot pot at a Chinese restaurant is covered with colorful flowers. A banner in the background says Zhi Wei.

A vessel for hot pot at Zhi Wei Cafe. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

104 South St., Leather District, Downtown Boston, zhiweicafe.com.


Visit our Ultimate Guide to Boston Restaurant Openings, Summer 2023, to learn more about other exciting new openings this season.






Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Boston, MA

Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe

Published

on

Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe


Constantine Manos, “Los Angeles, California,” 2001. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Among Mr. Manos’s books were “A Greek Portfolio” (1972; updated 1999), “Bostonians” (1975), “American Color” 1995) and ”American Color 2″ (2010). Mr. Manos’s work with color was notably expressive and influential.

“Color was a four-letter word in art photography,” the photographer Lou Jones, who worked with Mr. Manos on “Where’s Boston?,” said in a telephone interview. “But he was making wonderful, complex photographs with color, and that meant so much.”

Yet for all his formal skill, Mr. Manos always emphasized the human element in his work. “I am a people photographer and have always been interested in people,” he once said.

That interest extended beyond the photographs he took. He was a celebrated teacher. Among the students he taught in his photo workshops was Stella Johnson.

“He’d go through a hundred of my photographs,” she said in a telephone interview, “and maybe he’d like two. ‘No, no, no, no, yes, no.’ Costa really taught me how to see. I remember him looking at one picture and saying, “You were standing in the wrong spot.’ Something like that was invaluable to me as a young photographer.

“He was a very, very kind man, very generous. But he was very strict. ‘How could you do that?’ He was adored by his students and by his friends, absolutely. We were all lucky to have been in his orbit.”

Advertisement
Cellist Samuel Mayes and conductor Charles Munch during a Boston Symphony Orchestra rehearsal at Tanglewood, July 25, 1959. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos, who moved to Provincetown in 2008, lived in the South End for four decades. The South Carolina native’s association with the Boston area began when the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired him as a photographer at Tanglewood. He was 19. This led to Mr. Manos’s first book, “Portrait of a Symphony” (1961; updated 2000).

Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1934. His parents, Dimitri and Aphrodite (Vaporiotou) Manos, were Greek immigrants. They ran a café in the city’s Black section. That experience gave Mr. Manos a sympathy for marginalized people that would stay with him throughout his life. As a student at the University of South Carolina, he wrote editorials in the school paper opposing segregation. Later, he would do extensive work chronicling the LGBTQ+ community with his camera.

Mr. Manos became interested in photography at 13, joining the school camera club and building a darkroom in his parents’ basement. After graduating from college, Mr. Manos did two years of Army service in Germany, working as a photographer for Stars and Stripes. He joined Magnum in 1963. This had special meaning for him. Mr. Manos’s chief inspiration as a young photographer had been Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of Magnum’s founders. He was such an admirer he made a point of using the same equipment that Cartier-Bresson did.

That same year, Mr. Manos entered a seafood restaurant in Rome that was around the corner from the Pantheon. Prodanou, his future husband, was dining with friends. Noticing Mr. Manos, he gestured to him. “Would you join us for coffee?” The couple spent the next 61 years together, marrying in 2011.

Advertisement
“Lining Up for the Shriner’s Parade, South End, Boston,” 1974. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos lived in Greece for three years, which led to “A Greek Portfolio.” He undertook a very different project in the Athens of America. Part of the city’s Bicentennial tribute, “Where’s Boston?” was a slice-of-many-lives view of contemporary Boston.

Located in a red-white-and-blue striped pavilion at the Prudential Center, it became a local sensation. The installation involved 42 computerized projectors and 3,097 color slides (most of them taken by Mr. Manos), shown on eight 10 feet by 10 feet screens. Outside the pavilion was a set of murals, consisting of 152 black-and-white photographs of Boston scenes, all shot by Mr. Manos.

“The most important thing I had to do was to keep my picture ideas simple,” he said in a 1975 Globe interview. “Viewers are treated to a veritable avalanche of color slides in exactly one hour’s time.”

In that same interview, he made an observation about his work generally. “I prefer to stay in close to my subjects. I let them see me and my camera and when they become bored they forget about me and then I get my best pictures.”

Among institutions that own Mr. Manos’s photographs are the Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Library of Congress; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

In addition to his husband, Mr. Manos leaves a sister, Irene Constantinides, of Atlanta, and a brother, Theofanis Manos, of Greenville, S.C.

Advertisement

A memorial service will be held later this year.


Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.





Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Boston, MA

Below freezing temperatures again today

Published

on

Below freezing temperatures again today


The winds are still going Wednesday, but the air temperatures remain at respectable levels. Highs will manage to weasel up to 30 in most spots. It’s too bad we’re not going to feel them at face value. Instead, we’re dressing for temps in the teens all day today.

Thursday and Friday are the picks of the week.

There will be a lot less wind, reasonable winter temperatures in the 30s and a decent amount of sun. We’ll be quiet into the weekend, as our next weather system approaches.

Advertisement

With mild air expected to come north on southerly winds, highs will bounce back to the low and mid-40s both days of the weekend.

Showers will be delayed until late day/evening on Saturday and into the night. There may be a few early on Sunday too, but the focus on that day will be to bring in the cold.

Highs will briefly sneak into the 40s, then fall late day.

We’ll also watch a batch of snow late Sunday night as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard.

Right now, there is a potential for some accumulation as it moves overhead Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Advertisement

It appears to be a weak, speedy system, so we’re not expecting it to pull any punches.

Enjoy the quieter spell of weather!



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Boston, MA

Boston City Councilor will introduce

Published

on

Boston City Councilor will introduce


BOSTON – It could cost you more to get a soda soon. The Boston City Council is proposing a tax on sugary drinks, saying the money on unhealthy beverages can be put to good use.

A benefit for public health?

“I’ve heard from a lot of residents in my district who are supportive of a tax on sugary beverages, but they want to make sure that these funds are used for public health,” said City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who is introducing the “Sugar Tax,” modeled on Philadelphia and Seattle. She said it’s a great way to introduce and fund health initiatives and slowly improve public health.

A study from Boston University found that cities that implemented a tax on sugary drinks saw a 33% decrease in sales.

“What it does is it creates an environment where we are discouraging the use of something that we know, over time, causes cancer, causes diet-related diseases, causes obesity and other diet-related illnesses,” she said.

Advertisement

Soda drinkers say no to “Sugar Tax”

Soda drinkers don’t see the benefit.

Delaney Doidge stopped by the store to get a mid-day pick-me-up on Tuesday.

“I wasn’t planning on getting anything, but we needed toilet paper, and I wanted a Diet Coke, so I got a Diet Coke,” she said, adding that a tax on sugary drinks is an overreach, forcing her to ask: What’s next?

“Then we’d have to tax everything else that brings people enjoyment,” Doidge said. “If somebody wants a sweet treat, they deserve it, no tax.”

Store owners said they’re worried about how an additional tax would impact their businesses.

Advertisement

Durkan plans to bring the tax idea before the City Council on Wednesday to start the conversation about what rates would look like.

Massachusetts considered a similar tax in 2017.

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending