Shi Miaodao is a Rockville noodle soup shop steeped in legend and a rich pork broth

Crossing bridge noodle soup is sort of a personal hot pot, except you dump all the ingredients into the broth before taking a single slurp. If you’re unfamiliar with the procedure, Zhu will guide you through it, starting with the raw ribbons of beef, so rich with inter-muscular fat they look like strips of pork belly. As the beef slowly changes color, from pink to chestnut, you add the other ingredients: a cooked quail egg, salty ham, corn kernels, tofu skin, mustard greens, fish cakes, wood-ear mushrooms, scallions, baby bok choy and a paste made from pork belly, spring onions and oil. The rice noodles go in last. You can season the soup with the chili oil and black vinegar condiments that grace every table.