I finally returned to New Mandarin Garden in SSF to try their other za jiang mien (ZJM) version. It's their "Taiwanese" version. The noodles here were the same toothsome, hand-pulled kind used in the Korean version. But the sauce was different. So first off, the Korean version uses black beans and the sauce ends up very black whereas this one uses a more brownish bean sauce. You can also see bits of ground pork and dried bean curd diced up in this version along with some green onions and I think bamboo shoots (well, there's some kind of diced vegetable in the sauce for texture). The Korean version only of had diced up fatty pork (not ground).I really thought I was going to like this version better after the servers had said that most Chinese people like this version and seeing that I think my palate is skewed Taiwanese. But I didn't. The sauce was very sweet for a Chinese style bean sauce. Sweet isn't a flavour find great with dried bean curd. I wish the prominent note had been salty instead. It wasn't bad but the taste wasn't exactly addictive either. I'm sticking with the Korean version next time.
Closeup of the noodles after the sauce has been mixed in.
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