Oat is considered the king of grains as it is highest in nutrition. However it is not tasty, until the Chinese discovered how to make oat noodles out of oatmeal.

In the day and age of food security and food scare, Sibei Oat Noodles is like a breathe of fresh air. Sibei Oat Noodles restaurant’s signature is food made from oat flour. They raise their own sheep for lamb and cook Northwestern cuisine 西北菜, which consisted of Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, etc. Northwestern cuisine has two main characteristics – it is not complicated and usually feature one main ingredient per dish, and it is mono-flavour even though they use spices to perk up the profile, it is usually one main flavour (salty, spicy, sweet, sour, etc).

果蔬大拌菜 Fruit and vegetable salad – the main taste is sour. Vinegar is used as the dressing with chilli oil and sesame oil. But it is sour like coleslaws. Interestingly, it has oat noodles as the base and bean curd for texture.

黄米凉糕 Millet rice cakes – the main taste is sweet. The millet is cooked and combined with osmanthus molasses, and steamed together with glutinous rice and wild mulberry. Almost like a dessert but it is served as an appetiser in NW.

羊蝎子锅锅 Lamb bones casserole – The main taste is spicy. This is their version of “sup tulang”.

羊肉串 Signature lamb kebabs – The main taste is savoury. The chunks of lamb came from their own farms, and have been marinated with their signature spice rub. And then topped with paprika and cumin for that final grilling.

蒙古牛大骨 Mongolian beef ribs stew – The main taste is savoury. I loved the use of aromatics in this stew, the soup is almost like “sup kambing”

功夫鱼 Kungfu fish – This is aromatic spicy but not hot spicy, the fresh water carp is cooked in a spicy stew until the bland fish is infused with all the flavours.

羊肉水饺 Minced lamb dumplings – This is savoury. None of the gamey taste. Moist and satisfying. The dumpling skin uses oat flour.

莜面蒸饺 Steam oatmeal dumpling – this is savoury. The filling includes shrimp, chives and scrambled egg.

酸菜炒莜面 Fried oat noodles with sauerkraut – this is tangy and savoury. Just like the breakfast fried yellow noodles. I never expect oat noodles to taste so good.

蘑菇莜面鱼鱼 Oat spätzle in mushroom tomato stock – instead of noodles, the dough is made into spätzle and cooked in a savoury, tangy stock.

The Huawei Canteen

I have the privilege of working with a very fine company, a group of professionals. The Nanjing campus is sprawling space with plenty of open areas for engineers to chill. It’s not like the manufacturing production lines type impression that many would think of Huawei as this is a R&D base.

To feed the masses, they have a special building with different cuisines, from simple food stores, to restaurants like this one. All the food in there are subsidised for Huawei employees. And as part of probity policies, we are not allowed to entertain them. But my hosts were very generous and ordered some of the best oat cuisine I have tasted.

I hope they will come out of this trade war stronger and better than before.

{Opinions solely my own and not representative of any company or official statements.)

Sibei Oat Noodles 西贝莜面村
Multiple locations (this one is inside the Huawei Nanjing campus)

http://www.xibei.com.cn/

Date Visited : Aug 2018