Big Noodle Energy
Just before 6pm on an early weekday, the queue for White Clothes Udon in Sham Shui Po is already 20 people deep—a relatively low number for this new noodle destination. Many of those waiting are fully masked and fanning themselves in the oppressive Hong Kong summer heat and a crushing humidity that has not quite abated in the hour before dusk. Their quest is a deceptively simple spread of flat sheet noodles, a curiously unusual variety known as himokawa udon that is unlike any other you can find in Hong Kong. This distinctive noodle and Hong Kong’s latest culinary arriviste is the speciality of Kiryu in Gunma Prefecture, two hours north-west of Tokyo, a city known for its textile industry and, in particular, its silk.
Inside White Clothes Udon, patrons hunch over tables, carefully navigating their chopsticks to lift what could be mistaken for creamy-hued white silk handkerchiefs, dipping the
