The Search for Delicious 3: The Great and Mysterious Restaurant Zhou Yulong

I had heard whispers of a Chinese restaurant, a very very good Chinese restaurant, which is a hot commodity here in Madrid.  Something about it not having a sign, and I wasn't sure whether that meant it had a name but it wasn't posted or maybe there wasn't a sign because there was no name to put on the sign.  

Although my interest was piqued at the time, without much more information about its whereabouts, I soon forgot about it.  That is, until a picture popped up on my instagram feed from Eating España. I saw a very sizable bowl of noodles, and a caption that said "welcome to the hidden chino under plaza de españa."  As far as I knew, there wasn't anything under Plaza de España at all besides maybe a parking garage.  So I went to investigate, walking down an unmarked set of stairs, and sure enough, I found myself in a parking lot, with no sign of a restaurant and nothing but cars and an Enterprise office.  

A little frustrated but still determined, I walked back up the steps and walked around the plaza a bit, looking for some other entrance.  I found it an entrance marked "Entrada para peatones," stairs leading downwards.  I walked into a hallway, and the first thing I saw was a Chinese travel agency.  I walked a little further and saw some tables through the glass of a room that could fit at most 30 people.  But there was no sign, and I started to look at the menu that was posted on the wall, and there were the tallarines caseras or homemade noodles.  So this was it.  And then I looked at the door and saw a sizable collection of star stickers from various online food/travel sites.

I ordered the noodles and a bottle of water received my food in about 5 minutes or so.

Long and thick egg noodles swim in a beef based broth spotted with scallions and green onions.  Cooked ground beef (which it took a second to get used to) and pickled chilis top the mound of noodles.  You're going to have to slurp, but you'll enjoy it. After finishing, I got my bill, and it was 5,50€ with the bottled water.

This was one of those meals, one of those restaurants that you want to shout from the rooftops about.  I went for the first time on Thursday afternoon for lunch by myself. 

 I was back with three friends on Saturday night for dinner, and we ordered more food, steamed pork buns for under a €, Tsing Tao beer, which I thought tasted better than a lot of the Spanish beer you get here, stir fried noodles, delectable pork spare ribs, and dumplings, all shared communally.  

 Photo cred to Andy Kai Nagashima

My friends are huge ramen fans, and although this isn't ramen, they were as blown away as I was by the quality of the noodle soup, especially given the price. We went the next Saturday, the same group plus two more, and we've never paid more than 10€ a person including drinks. Once you go for the first time, you'll want to go more. You'll tell your friends in Madrid.  You'll bring people from out of town to this place. It is the definition of a diamond in the rough.