Hung’s Noodles brings a taste of local artistry to your favourite noodle bowl BY ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH
Thick Noodles
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any food lovers have gotten to know the smallest of details when it comes to where their food comes from. Menus often tell us where the meat we eat was raised and where the vegetables and grains were grown and keen eaters know all about local condiments, chocolate makers, and coffee roasters. But those noodles that you love to slurp up in your favourite Asian restaurant? Unless you’re going to one of the relatively rare places that specialize in hand-cut noodles, it’s probably something that customers haven’t given much thought. If you are a fan of restaurant dishes that involve fresh chow mein noodles, egg noodles, wonton wrappers, Shanghai
20 Culinaire | January/February 2022
noodles, and especially rice noodles or rice rolls, there’s a very good chance that you’ve eaten products from Hung’s Noodles without knowing it. The Calgarybased business has been serving both restaurant and retail customers since 1984, and is one of Calgary’s original purveyors of fresh, locally made noodles. The idea for Hung’s was sparked when founder Ricky Chung’s uncle, who owned a Chinese restaurant in Calgary, complained that there wasn’t a source of local noodles available. When Chung’s father immigrated to Canada, he brought a small noodle making machine with him with the intent of helping out his brother and filling a gap in the market, but it ended up sitting dormant in the basement
of the restaurant. Meanwhile, Chung himself took on a rare apprenticeship with a prestigious noodle maker in Hong Kong to learn the craft. Once he arrived in Calgary he took a job at a grocery store to better learn English and the needs of the local market. Four years later he was ready to make his move and Hung’s Noodles was born. Business was a little rocky at first, but Chung, his father, and his wife worked hard to get their little business off the ground. “It took a while to figure out how to make my noodles here,” Chung says. “The first time I went to a distributor and they asked what kind of flour I wanted, I didn’t know what to say. My English wasn’t that
