mi xian

The ingredients for the regional rice noodles that are served everywhere are fairly standard place to place, but the set up in the area where we vacationed left more hands-on (felt like freedom. yet we take these freedoms at the expense of what others?) for the diner. at the noodle part of the stand, you can choose vermicelli, pad-thai sized, or wide rice noodles, which the stand owner boils for you, and then adds broth (and meat, or not. and green onions and cilantro, or not, you missing-out-koreans). Then you get to take your bowl over to the table with the add-ons, which typically include: raw garlic in its juices, ginger in its juices, vinegar, soy sauce, hua jiao powder, MSG, salt, chili powder, chili paste, chili salt, sometimes fulu/lufu (the aged tofu), and some sort of pickled vegetable selection (mostly radish). then you sit at a table with maybe your friends and maybe some strangers and take toilet paper from a plastic toilet paper holder because you've started sweating.