Tables for Two Tango: Hannah Goldfield's "Lhasa Fresh Food"

Photo by Christaan Felber, from Hannah Goldfield's "Lhasa Fresh Food"

This is the sixth post in my series “Tables for Two Tango,” a celebration of Hannah Goldfield’s and Helen Rosner’s wonderful New Yorker restaurant reviews. Each month I select a favorite piece by one or the other of them and try to say why I like it. Today’s pick is Goldfield’s delightful “Tables for Two: Lhasa Fresh Food” (May 20, 2019). 

I love soup. Two of the best soup descriptions I’ve ever read are in this piece. Lhasa Fresh Food is a Tibetan restaurant in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, New York City, that serves dumplings, soups, stir-fries, and noodle dishes. Goldfield likes the dumplings and the noodles. But what she really savors are two soups – thenthuk and karsod. She writes,

Better yet is a traditional Tibetan soup called thenthuk, thick with hand-torn wheat noodles—described charmingly on the menu as “not longer than a thumb”—a few strands of glass noodles, bright-green bok-choy leaves, wood-ear mushrooms, translucent triangles of radish, red onion, and your choice of browned lamb, chicken, beef, or pork. Fresh cilantro floats on the surface of the cloudy, rich beef or vegetable broth, which is redolent of ginger, celery, and garlic and carries a subtle heat; the same beautifully balanced flavor profile is at work in a brothless, stir-fried version of the dish.

Of the karsod, she says,

But my favorite dish might be the karsod, another soup. With a putty-pale sheet of lightly oiled dough stretched over the top of the bowl, it resembles an uncooked potpie, a broadcast of blandness. To pierce the surface and access the piping hot broth inside is to be reminded that mild does not necessarily equate to boring. In a version with lamb, the simple, slightly gummy pastry and the clear, fragrant liquid, dotted sparingly with scallion, cilantro, and translucent coins of potato, provide an optimal canvas for the gently gamy flavor of the simmered meat—as humble yet surprising as the restaurant itself. 

What impresses me about these descriptions is their details. These soups may appear simple, but they’re not. Goldfield notes their subtle ingredients: “hand-torn wheat noodles”; “few strands of glass noodles”; “bright-green bok-choy leaves”; “wood-ear mushrooms”; “translucent triangles of radish”; “red onion.” That “clear, fragrant liquid, dotted sparingly with scallion, cilantro, and translucent coins of potato” is pure poetry. I’ve never forgotten it.