Jtyh Restaurant - Rosemead

In case you couldn't tell by my previous review, I don't have the best luck with men. Clearly I cling to the crazies, but there are other problems beyond my control as well. For example, I tend to go for manly men. By manly, I mean a wood-chopping, beer-guzzling guys with shirt-ripping muscles acquired from something other than a personal trainer who looks like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball.

I don't know how I'll find this man, but when I do I'll know. And when we dig into a dish of hand-rolled cold Noodles in House Sauce at an unpretentious cafe-style setup like Jtyh, he'll really dig in. No dainty dabbing of the lips here, just stuff so many noodles into your mouth you have to bite them and let the rest fall onto your plate. Bonus points if you drop some into the lap you forgot to put a napkin in because you're a bad Asian like me and never mastered chopsticks. And if I hear you slurp this ropy round with its unpretentious soy-based sauce, I'll kiss you by the end of the night no matter how many crudely-chopped cubes of garlic you just ate.

A dude-bro once told me that no one can be a bigger man than me. Unfortunately, it's hard NOT to be the bigger man in a city where the guys manicure their lawns AND their toes. Fortunately, Jtyh dishes out a good dose of MAN with the dao xiao mian. 

A guy who shaves noodles into a boiling broth with a huge knife? I will slurp him up even faster than the Beef Stewed Noodle Soup. This hearty, rugged broth is meaty minus the greasy and the stewed chunks of marbeled beef break apart in your mouth.

I'm not really a fan of non-facial hair...or facial hair, for that matter, but the SoCal pretty-boys could use a little more on the chest. It adds a little character with some texture and depth, the same way a little more thin-sliced lamb would have enhanced the Lamb Fried Noodles. But make no mistake, these stir-fried noodles have shaved sides curl like waves of sweaty hair after a day of lifting at the gym, and that glimpse of gamy flavor will fill you up like the Chinese version of a Hungry Man dinner.

It's hard to find a manly-man in a city where the guys are paying up to have their cuticles clipped and their chest hair removed, but Jtyh kind of restores my faith. Unsurprisingly, there are only five knife-shaved noodle houses in the LA area, where manly-men are about as common as unicorns. I guess you can wish me happy hunting because the minute I find one, I'm never letting him go.