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Trivialities of aside, if you happen to be one of the privileged fuerdai occupying Laurelwood’s suburbs- buying homes, studying, missing the red land, and yearning for food (I can only imagine) both familiar and done extremely right, then why not give Bogda Restaurant a try? Don’t let its salutation of ‘Central Asia & Japanese Food’ fool you, I did that already. To be brutally honest, its 5 dollar student special attracted me, but its unfocussed, all encompassing menu had me expecting the most mundane culinary delights, like sushi and fried rice, and whatever else existed across the pan-asian menu. Luckily, any prosaic pap was off the menu today, and my company and I were given the choice of 3 things on the menu. Over and over again. But before you prejudge my presumably blind adoration of yet another place you assume I romanticize, only to find out it’s alright after you visit it, let me ask you, is there any place in this entire city that makes hand-pulled noodles? This is obviously rhetorical. Bogda is the only place. And its fusion food fare, ripe with Mongolian, Uyghur, even Turkish influences. If authenticity is a real thing, and we are to kid ourselves that it is, then Bogda is as close as Asian cuisine comes around here. Even if two or three items on the menu (two or three affordably stupefying items) are the only things made as fresh and from scratch as possible.
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My heart burst when a plate of pulled noodles was placed between me and my company. I’d spent years searching, summers reading anthropological studies, long nights attempting to make something even remotely close, and here it was finally in front of me. Each exponentially long strand was chewy, buoyant, and fresh, territorialized with knolls like little hands that grabbed every bit of sauce they were soaked in- a true characteristic of fresh made noodles which dry quickly, and are controlled only by the most practiced hands. We ate round ones, ones that were broad and flat; every kind of fresh noodle Bogda’s matriach could create, we ate with jubilation.
Our first dish, ban mian: flat noodles, a paradoxically round udon, was paired with cuts of greens, cabbage, dry roasted chili peppers, Szechuan peppercorns, beef, and a small spirit of ginger all in an acidic savoury sauce that I likened to stewed tomatoes. It made our tongues tingle, moored us with the nutty, spicy elements of the chilis that dominated the sauce’s astringency, and upheaved itself with the citron flavours of the peppercorns and ginger.
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Our next astonishing, and large, plate was a lamb stew nested in broad, flat noodles. It was one surprise after the other. Garnished with, of all risky things, fresh leeks, it was a close cousin of our first dish, accompanied this time with generous bits of garlic, cumin, dried chillis, Szechuan pepper, potatoes, and a meaty broth that each noodle playfully dived back into after escaping our chopsticks. The pieces of lamb were so tender I found myself chewing even the bones. The leeks’ pungency cut through any richness, something I never experienced before.
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And if those noodles weren’t enough, we were offered a courtesy plate of even more, this time slathered in a simple sauce with slices of carrot, chili flakes, and greens. And though we may have had more than enough to eat, we made it our duty to try the lamb kabobs. Fragrant pieces of lamb welded to the steel skewers they were cooked on. Their earthiness was complimented by the spiciness of the cumin and chili, pearled by the moisture that oozed from each bit of flesh. Fatty at times, and if pulling hairs, a little dry, but good nonetheless. But what do such mild faux pas matter? I finally found the fresh noodles I spent a better part of 5 years looking for. Yes, dear readers, the road to heaven has been a steep one, but it has finally led me to Bogda Restaurant.
BOGDA RESTAURANT
645 Laurelwood Drive
Waterloo, ON
N2V 2W9
519-725-0885
Mon-fri 12pm-9pm
Sat 12pm-8pm
Sun- 1pm-8pm
Any payment
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