Primary Taste Yunnan Rice Noodle

This post is long overdue!  I kinda debated writing this post as my experience here was just average.  But...I figured Yunnan Rice Noodles (過橋米線) is not as common as other Asian noodles and some people might be weary of whether to try it or not, so...here's a little bit of info about this place.

The main dishes here are rice noodle soups and there is a story behind the dish which you can read about here.  The noodles are round like spaghetti or Vietnamese vermicelli (thick) and differ from flat rice noodles used in Cantonese cooking or Vietnamese pho.  I looked up Yunnan noodles and Wiki tells us that the noodles are commonly fermented noodles. Fermented?  Sounds interesting so of course I had to read more...

I found a preview of the book "Asian Noodles: Science, Technology, and Processing" on Google and under the Noodle Processing chapter, they describe the different processing steps for rice noodles, including "fermented rice noodles".  Fermented rice noodles are noodles made from rice soaked for 2-6 days vs 3 hrs for regular rice noodles.  Not sure if the noodles at Primary Taste are actually fermented and I don't know what that would taste like but it was interesting to learn. Anyway, the noodles do have a certain bounce or 'stretchiness' to it; you'll know what I mean if you try to grab some with your chopsticks instead of just dumping the whole bowl into the soup, it will stretch kinda like an elastic band.

The meal comes out with soup in an earthenware bowl to retain the heat, a bowl of warm noodles and a tray of food and condiments.  The food items include several slices of pork (hot pot style), a quail egg, one chicken wing or drum, bean curd sheet, white fungus, black fungus, and corn.  I ordered the soup with meatballs in it which comes with a tomato based broth.  The broth was nothing special, but I thought the meatballs were quite good.  The different meat balls (beef and chicken) were all filled with a seasoned meat (I'm thinking pork) that was quite juicy, not the usual that you buy from the supermarket. They are like Fu Zhou fish balls 福州魚丸 where the fish balls contain minced pork filling.  

Unfortunately there isn't much English available to describe what everything is.

The other unfortunate thing is the tables are small for what you are getting.  A bowl of noodles, a bowl of soup, a tray of items to add to the noodles, your tea cup and utensils.  If you order a side dish or an additional drink there is no space for two people to dine.  They expect you to add the items into your broth pretty quickly and then they take the tray away leaving you with more space.  It's okay for most people, but if you're ordering a side dish, it doesn't work.  And, I wasn't able to take more than one picture as I was trying to juggle space and ensure my toddler didn't grab at anything on the table, especially the hot soup!

Prices are average, the meatball one was just under $10 while the basic is $7.99.  Aside from the small tables, I would say it's worth a try.  They do have a number of spicy broths that could be better than the ones we chose and a number of side dishes.

價錢還好, 我的肉丸米線不超過十塊.  而外桌子小一點, 我覺得可試試看.  他們也有幾個辣味的湯 (可能比我點的好一點) 和小菜.


Primary Taste Yunnan Rice Noodle
109A Ravel Rd
Toronto, ON M2H 1T2
416-499-3836

Why the occasional duplicate sentence written in Chinese?  

One of my goals starting in 2016 is to improve my Chinese language skills so this is one way I'm going about it.  
Please comment if you noticed I've totally messed up!  Thanks!