We experienced a small gust of thrill when we saw the sign for new Chinese in Elephant called ‘Murger Han’. As it rhymes with ‘Burger Van’, we envisioned delicacies such hamburger egg rolls. As it turns out, it’s billed as ‘London’s first authentic Xi’ian restaurant ‘, which provided us with another gust, as two of us at KR towers have actually been to Xi’an on the very street where this food is made. The food is a wonderful departure from the Cantonese gloop that we’ve been spoon fed for decades, and comes from an area of China where wheat replaces rice and the food becomes infused with spices such as cumin.
Murger Han promotes itself as Chinese street food, and murgers themselves are meat filled sandwiches. They looked hearty, but the thing to order here is the speciality of the house, and that is biang biang noodles. These noodles get their name from being stretched and slapped into long slinky bands until they’re thin and chewy. Your scribe had the noodle with shredded beef and black fungus, with the compulsory Chinese black vinegar sauce and added garlic oil.
Believe it or not, this was not taken by a professional food photographer 
Alice from Finance had her noodles with spicy pork, tomato, egg and vegetables (the variations being endless). She reported the dish as having ‘quite big flavours and spicy but not overwhelmingly – really rich and flavourful, served in a beautiful big bowl’. The noodles have a long and almost intestinal look to them but don’t let that put you off as they result in a joyous slurp. The mains are between £12-£14 which without booze (rare for us) is pretty reasonable. They also serve noodle and dumpling based soups.
We visited Murger Han on a rainy Saturday, which proved almost fatal as the floor is totally marble and patrons were sliding all over the place. The marble extends up the wall, giving the place the appearance of a 90’s strip club, softened somewhat by the presence of cute emoji throw cushions, which we found curiously appealing. But if the atmosphere doesn’t arouse you’ll find the food absurdly satisfying, and is a great, slurpy and slippy way to spend an afternoon or an evening.
