Hand-pulled noodles tend to be thinner, very stringy. It’s hard to cook them al dente. The hand knead / machine cut have the shape of wide noodles, but are thicker. If Kam Hong still has ‘em, they’re the ones to get. They’re even better prepped than knife cut because the knife cut noodles might end up being overdone as the cook wants to make sure they’re not too chewy.

Either way, Kam Hong just didn’t have the soup base down the times I’ve visited…

Shou la (hand pulled) are longer and thinner (but still chewy); the process for making them involves taking a single piece of dough, stretching it out, and doubling it over on itself; over time, it turns into increasingly thinner noodles. This is easier to understand if you watch someone doing it, either in person or on a video.

Someone on Chowhound said that the hand kneaded, machine cut noodles (not sure if these are shou gan mian or something else) at Kam Hong are really good too, and sometimes chewier than the dao xiao. I haven’t tried them yet.

(search youtube if you want to see a video of either method).

What’s the difference between hand-shaved (dao xiao) and hand-pulled (shou la) noodles?