The Taiwanese Manifeast Destiny marches onward, having laid conquest to Arcadia I guess El Monte is up next.
Corner Beef Noodle is not unlike most any Taiwanese eatery in SGV that lays its yet-to-be determined fame on Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup (or Niu Rou Mian).
But while the Beef Noodle Soup is fine (good broth, nice mix of shank and tendon), the real find here me thinks is the Noodles in XO sauce. The sauce is your typical XO concoction, a mixture of minced conpoy, dried shrimp, soy, rice wine, onions, garlic, etc. and a bunch of other stuff Iād rather not think too hard about. The noodles, while I am told are hand-made, are not hand-made in-house, are fine and serves just well enough to be a non-obtrusive vessel for the sauce.
But put it all together you sort of have this quasi XO sauce noodle that is part Jia Jiang Mian and part quality instant ramen. Sounds weird, yes. But so does eating fried fermented tofu, I suppose.
In any event it all sort of works. Briny, salty, with a viscous umami finish that you find only after doing shots with those artisan ramen seasoning packs (just from what friends tell me, of course).
Oh, and since I was still on baby-sitting (er, child-sitting) duty after lunch, a quick stop at La Michoacana for some paletas to fight off this November heat was most certainly a good call by this FTC-er.
Corner Beef Noodle
El Monte (on Peck, near Ramona, north of the 10 fwy).