What it is
Squid rice-noodle soup (小卷米粉, literally "little squid rice noodles") puts pieces of squid over thick, round rice noodles in a clear broth made from the squid's own cooking liquid, lifted with white pepper and chopped celery. The taste is clean and faintly sweet. Despite the name, Yeh Jia, the oldest Tainan shop, now uses a larger squid than the classic little one.
Where it came from
Yeh Jia (葉家) in Tainan claims to be the first shop in Taiwan to sell squid rice-noodle soup. Yeh Shui-lung (葉水龍) started it in 1935 at the city's Great Market (大菜市), and the third generation now runs it on Guohua Street. The noodles matter as much as the squid. Unlike the thin vermicelli in most rice-noodle soups, they are thick and made with brown rice, a type that local food writers describe as peculiar to Tainan.
How it is made
Taiwanese squid names follow size. The squid called suoguan (鎖管) is xiaojuan (小卷) at roughly 5 to 17 cm and zhongjuan (中卷), also called touchou (透抽), up to about 30 cm. The squid is cleaned and cooked to order in simmering stock while the cook skims off the scum. That liquid, built on squid and cuttlefish, becomes the broth. It is seasoned with pepper and celery and poured over the noodles.
How to eat it
This is a breakfast and lunch dish, and Yeh Jia closes by mid-afternoon. Eat the squid plain or dip it in the sauce set out on the tables. In summer, ask whether squid roe (小卷蛋) is available. Takeaway orders come with the noodles and soup packed separately.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Yeh Jia Calamari Rice Noodle Soup (葉家小卷米粉) on Guohua Street has held a Bib Gourmand since 2022 and draws queues at weekends. It uses mid-sized squid caught in Indonesian waters.
- Central
- In Taichung, one shop serves a whole squid shipped from Penghu in a peppery chicken broth with lizardfish balls, luffa and laver, over a choice of rice noodles, glass noodles or misua.
- Outlying islands
- Squid (小管) is a summer catch in Penghu. One seafood shop in Xiyu adds the squid's ink to its stock for a black-broth squid misua, and also serves the squid blanched, chilled and sliced with a dip.
