When the weather dips into small digits and winds charge through our concrete canyons, a fierce craving rises from my belly, bursting out like an Aliens monster and screaming, “Feed me broth! With noodles! But none of that chicken crud!” To appease my inner constitution, I escort my stomach to Super Taste, situated near Manhattan Bridge’s shadow. The décor is no great shakes, just a handful of stability-averse tables and gnarly fluorescent lights in a room barely bigger than a prison cell. The attraction is the chef behind the counter, standing on a box and hand-stretching Lanzhou wheat noodles. They’re light, chewy, bone-white beauties quickly bathed in a hot water, before being dropped into a plastic tureen filled with a rich broth.

You can accompany the noodles with a Noah’s Ark of flesh: eel, tendons, duck, mutton and cow’s feet, if you crave that kind of culinary adventure. I am hardly so daring, and instead select the sinus-clearing No. 2: “hand-pull noodle with beef in hot and spicy soup.” Order it by pointing at the paper menu (there’s an inverse ratio to the staff’s cooking skill and English proficiency). In a flash, you’ll spoon up dark brown broth slicked with red chili. Meaty, fatty beef hunks are submerged beneath the noodles, like delicious land mines. A couple spinach leaves add the illusion of healthfulness. Devour the chewables, then raise the container to your lips and slurp deeply to fortify yourself against the insistent arctic chill. 

26 Eldridge St. (betw. Canal & Division Sts.),

212-625-1198.