I admit it doesn't take much to get me excited about a new noodle restaurant—I've ruined more shirts than I can count over the years with splash stains. But when my buddy Mike recently put me on to a place in Flushing that specializes in a rice-noodle soup made with—WTF—passion fruit broth, I knew I was getting on the 7 train sooner rather than later.
The restaurant is called Xiaozhan Rice Noodle, it's a narrow storefront that makes up for its small footprint by being as visually busy as possible, and almost every table was taken at around 3 p.m. last Friday afternoon. There have been reports of hour-plus waits during peak times, so plan accordingly.
And it's easy to see why it's popular! Xiaozhan serves up a killer lineup of pot rice noodles, so called because the soup is served in small-mouthed but deceptively deep clay pots. Each of the dozen-or-so varieties comes with an impressive tangle of slippery, springy rice noodles; slivers of bright pink, near-shockingly potent Chinese sausages; strands of tofu skin; crisp beans sprouts, scallion shoots, and other green things.