How I got to know about this fabulous gift from the universe, is from my ex colleagues when I was working near Cheung Sha Wan. They used to call up the stall and mass order lunch for everyone, and then we'd walk down to the stall to collect our noodles by ourselves as this chain yunnan noodle shop does not offer delivery services.
It is so popular that it is always crowded (depending on location), and the one I first went to was always full of people lining up, holding numbered tickets waiting for their turn.
It serves a range of about 15 ingredients which you can choose randomly and they'll cook them in your choice of soup base. For people who can't take spicy foods, theres only 1 soup base to choose from, no prizes for guessing what it is, but yes it is Clear Savoury Soup. How boring. =] And there comes the choices for spicy food lovers, and they are Level 10, L5, L4, L3, L2, Mild Spicy, Medium Spicy, Big Spicy and finally SUPER spicy, with L10 being the mildest. Of course there is also the Hot & Sour version which is basically L10+preserved sour vegetables, so it's an option for people who like sour soup bases.
I started out with a L5 spiciness in 2008, and slowly upgraded to L4. They are pretty spicy even for L5 and L4, so I remained in that level, until recently, Sep 2011, I upgraded my spiciness level to a L3 and found myself having to search for tissues to stop the uncontrollable mucus from dripping. Eww, yes I know. It is such an addictive dish that I'm almost certain they must have added in some addictive ingredients that made me wanna have them almost every 3 days. Of course, there are people who do not understand what's so delicious about this bowl of noodles, so I guess the addictive doesn't work on everyone. =]
I always choose 竹生 (pronounced 'chok sang'), which is some kinda porous, crunchy bamboo shoot of some kind, which absorbs all the flavour of the soup and really juicy when you chew on it, paired up with either chicken or pork slices and that meal would be a definite satisfying one.
A bowl of those two ingredients plus the spicy soup base costs around HK$28-$30 (S$4.50-$5) depending on the location of the noodle shop.
So far no other soup noodles that I've tried managed to take over the place of Tam Zai in my heart, or tummy for that matter. Either that, or I've been eating Tam Zai for so long, that I don't even wanna try other similar types of noodles (this type of noodles is totally different from the wanton noodles type nor the prawn mee type btw).
Photo time!
Number on the screen is 53. =]
My number is 57! 4 more yay! The second line says for 1 person.
Menu for new customers to decide what to eat before sitting in. For me, I always know what I wanted even before I reach the shop. =]
Level of monstrosity! Hahaha I once saw someone eating the SUPER spicy and his face was as red as a monster. So is the soup.
$5 extra if you wanna have a drink with your noodles.
Yummy Iced Lemon Tea!
I'm feeling like having it right now whilst typing.
Finito.
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