This CBD restaurant’s robot makes excellent northern Chinese noodles

The noodle droid lies dormant between orders. Its head is a block of dough, its arms fitted with horribly sharp blades. In front of it, a cauldron of scalding water froths and spits in anticipation. An order hits the kitchen: knife-sliced noodles topped with heritage pork ragu. At the press of a button, the doughbot wakes, trains the blades on its porcelain face, and braces for violence. Suddenly, with furious speed and chilling resolve, it engages, throwing shards of dough through the air and into the vat. It’s made an utter meal of itself.

The scent of mature vinegar and willow mushrooms hang thick at Jin Noodle Restaurant, which suggests we could be in China’s hardy north. Really, we’re on Russell Street, amid a lively stretch of regional Chinese restaurants spanning Xinjiang to Guangxi, in a noodle joint cooking the rib-sticking particulars of Jin cuisine: the food of Shanxi province.

To be clear, that’s one “a”, cradle-of-Chinese-civilisation Shanxi province – not double “a”, terracotta-warriors-and-biang-biang-noodles Shaanxi province. It’s where owner Andy Li hails from, a province whose food rarely gets its flowers, outside of its storied black vinegars and totemic knife-sliced noodles: chewy, inch-wide ribbons lathered in rich, savoury gravies. You might have seen them cut from a block of dough with human hands at Little Lonsdale’s excellent Dao Noodle. Human hands will not be necessary here.

“The traditional way, the chef holds the dough and uses a special knife. Instead of using a person we use a robot; it’s the same process,” says Li. As far as niche skills go, cutting chewy-centred, ruffle-edged noodles at pace is right up there, and it can take years to master, he says. You can’t argue with the robot’s results.

With blistered copper accents, caramel woods and graceful lighting, the fitout says demure omakase more than raucous noodle shop. At the back, a long, wooden bar frames the kitchen and fills with solo diners at lunch, while groups of Chinese tradies and CBD workers gather round larger tables at the front. Everyone arrives with noodles on the brain, most will leave with noodles in the belly, but there are important decisions to be made in between via the QR code on your table.

Will it be the time-honoured, slow-braised beef noodle soup? The signature pork ragu? And which type of noodle will you choose? Wide-ish, irregular and bot-sliced? Thin, delicate and spun of golden pea flour? Will there be sides?

I’ll answer that last one for you: yes, there will be; some of Jin Noodle’s best work happens off Broadway. The whole green pepper, for example, is fried and marinated in rich, slow-aged lao chen vinegar made from peas, barley and sorghum. Shanxi folk take vinegar very seriously (see: the Shanxi Vinegar Culture Museum), and the tangy depth it imparts on this pepper is precisely the sabre you want between mouthfuls of steamy, starchy noodles. “Some customers just drink it,” says Li.

You’re not here for vegies, per se, but you’re not here for that log of richly braised pork belly before you either, and yet it is sensational: meltingly tender, sweet-savoury magic; an auspicious steal at $8.80.

Both signature noodle soups, the pork ragu and the slow-cooked beef, are loaded with meat and properly fortifying. For a brighter, saucier experience, consider the “rich tomato and velvet egg” topping. It’s an icon of jiachang cai – a canon of home-style Chinese dishes – and it’s also winter’s natural enemy. Tomatoes are stewed soft until their juices run wild; the eggs scrambled separately in aromatic oil and folded in to form a sweet, salty gravy rich with umami. Tumbled through hot, knife-cut – sorry, bot-cut – noodles, it’s a dish that radiates main-character energy despite its understated presentation.

Not much of an egghead? How do you go with mushrooms, then? And, subquestion: have you ever come across Chinese tea-tree mushrooms in a bowl of noodle soup in Melbourne? There are tons of them in the forest mushroom and pork noodles, and they’re wonderful: barky, earthy, slender-stalked things that put serious woodland depth in your broth. They’ll steep as long as they’re underwater, too, so if you can ration a few till the end, your soup will be richer for it. There’s plenty of coriander and spring onions in here to invigorate all of that pork and mushroom broth, and, like all things Shanxi, a splash of lao chen vinegar here is always a great shout.

When the weather heats up, my attention will turn to the spicy and cold mixed liangpi: a summertime street staple of neighbouring Shaanxi. Noodles are sliced from a pliant hide of rice flour, water and salt, then tumbled with julienned cucumber and porous cubes of wheat starch – a hungry sponge for the vinegar-loaded sauce. A supple noodle and a keenness for proportion are key to this dish; both are in delicious evidence here.

The absence of liquor licence will disappoint some, but the application is underway; stand by for beers and baijiu. In the meantime, knock the top off one of China’s duelling orange sodas, Arctic Ocean and Ice Peak. Dessert-seekers, similarly, will need to source their treats elsewhere.

Savoury cravings, however? They end here, in spectacular fashion, at the cold, exacting hands of a ruthless noodle droid, inside this excellent addition to Russell Street – another important fixture for Jin cuisine in Melbourne.

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