If you want a Chinese food recommendation in Plano, you could do worse than to simply drive to the corners of Coit Road and Park Boulevard and eat, well, anywhere. Hunan Bistro’s fiercely spicy specialties are dazzling, Turan is our region’s only Uyghur restaurant, Tao Rice Roll is open for breakfast, and China Blue has an intriguing riff on cumin lamb. Now everyone’s talking about a newcomer that set up shop on the northeast corner of the intersection a little more than a month ago. Hongyuan Dumplings & Noodles puts its specialties right in its name.
As you look over the menu, you’ll snack on a couple small, free nibbles: a bowl of peanuts and pickled, gently spicy cabbage. Choosing your meal isn’t hard. Just look to the kitchen, where a cook is almost always stretching hand-pulled noodles, slapping the dough against the countertop and spreading the long noodles between his outstretched fingertips. He doesn’t have the flamboyant showy character of some restaurants’ noodle pullers; instead, he has a nonchalance that is equally fascinating to watch. You have to be good at something to show off—but you have to be great to not need to show off anymore.
Hongyuan offers a variety of noodle dishes, and you’ll be allowed to choose your style of noodle. How wide, how flat, how thick, even a noodle that’s triangular instead of round.
For example, we chose that week’s special—cold Szechuan noodles—and then specified a medium-thickness dough. I’m curious, now, to go back and get the extra-thick noodles in another bowl. If you’re ordering takeout, you may consider the extra-thick variety from the start. Served fresh, the noodles have amazing chew, a resistance and texture that makes boxed spaghetti feel like mashed potatoes. If you take home a saucy box of noodles, however, the dough will gradually absorb the liquid and soften.
Those Szechuan noodles were a lovely summer starter, by the way. They were lightened by slivers of cucumber and chopped scallions, while also gently tingly from Szechuan peppercorns. The noodles themselves are so long, sturdy, and tangled that our waiter saw us struggling to serve them and brought a little pair of kids’ scissors.
From there we moved on to the specialty stir fried hand-pulled noodles. To better facilitate stir frying, this preparation comes recommended with wide, flat noodles. The cooking made them wavy and curlicued. Noodles get stir fried with a variety of veggies and your choice of meat. We chose a mix: tender slices of chicken, beef, and pork; the pork has the pink color of barbecued pork, but without the deeper flavor you find at spots like First Chinese BBQ.
The reader-tipster who wrote to me about Hongyuan originally didn’t even mention the noodles, though. Instead, he was all-in on the restaurant’s soup dumplings. He’s right. The soup dumplings come in two varieties: pork, or pork and crab. Our order pork xiao long bao had thin, tender wrappers and piping hot, super-flavorful pork broth on the insides. They are pleated to a circular center top which retains some chew, since it’s the place where all the folds come together. They are wonderful.
There are more specialties on offer, especially Lanzhou beef noodle soup (in more and less spicy varieties). All the more reason to return to this exciting new Chinese restaurant.
Hongyuan Dumplings & Noodles, 3921 W. Park Blvd., Ste. 100, Plano
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