King Made Noodles

Owned by Jay Feng and opened in 2019, King Made Noodles specialises in Lanzhou beef noodle soup from the north-west region of China. According to them, the best version of the dish “should acquire the following five features: clear soup, clean white turnips, brilliant red chilli oil, green parsley and yellow noodles”.

The Auckland venue is on Fort Street (there's another one in Queenstown) and is spacious with seating along the wall and at the bar.

You'll place your order, go and fetch your own chopsticks, spoon and bowl from the shelf at the back of the room, and watch the chef stretch out the dough that you'll shortly be eating as noodles. Even with open kitchens being pretty common these days, it’s excellent watching someone expertly prepare something you might struggle to do.

What makes the noodles here so good, compared to others we've tried around Auckland, is how they maintain their texture and chewiness right through to the bottom of the bowl (we'd be impressed if you got there though, it’s one hefty serve). Even if they’re swimming in a broth, you can taste their distinct salty flavour. The soup is savoury, and you can pep it up with chilli oil.

There are a couple of other things on the menu – dumplings and skewers – but we know what the star of the show is. After all, it's in the name.