Eat This, Riverside: Master Gan Crafts Noodly Delights in the Tyler Mall Food Court

Most of the time, I tend to avoid big malls. That’s even more so during the hot holiday shopping season. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, most malls’ limited appeal becomes even harder for me to discern. I’m not big on American-style consumerism, so shopping as entertainment for anything other than food and kitchen supplies never made it to the top of my to-do list. I’m an impatient walker: I start to curse under my breath when forced to slow my pace behind clots of shoppers in crowded mall pavilions.

And the food? Blech! Mall food courts tend to celebrate the kind of culinary homogeneity that I dislike the most about American food culture. You can find the same Annie’s Pretzels, Cinnabon, and Panda Express at every mall in the country. Some may find that sameness comforting; call me a snob, but I find it deadly.

So, I was surprised that I found myself champing at the bit to get to the Tyler Galleria last week - I normally wouldn’t be caught dead within a mile of a Macy’s so close to Black Friday. But I had a hankering for noodles, and my idle Google Maps research had surfaced news of the September opening of what seemed to be an authentic and appealing hand-pulled noodle shop.

I pushed my way past dawdling teens and circumnavigated phalanxes of strollers, held my breath as I beelined through clouds of sample perfume, and wound up on the second-floor Terrace Cafe, transfixed in front of Master Gan, watching a white-toque noodle man expertly kneading and stretching noodle dough in a display window.  As I gawked, his noodle calisthenics transformed the elastic dough into fresh noodles destined for paper bowls and happy noodle customers.

Master Gan is one outpost of a Lanzhou noodle mini-empire spreading its tendrils across the region (and in Las Vegas, Australia, and China if intel from the trainee manager is to be trusted). Owned by the same group as Arcadia’s 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle restaurant, Master Gan’s Tyler Mall branch opened in September and offers an unexpectedly delicious take on fast-food noodles. Lanzhou is a city in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu known for its beef noodle soup (thanks Wikipedia!). We are fortunate to have a practitioner of the noodle arts so close at hand here in Riverside.

Noodles at Master Gan are made to order and can be customized according to your preference: thin spaghettini style strands are great served “dry” - tossed in a hot wok with your choice of meat topping. “Flat” noodles are chunkier and more robust, maintaining structural integrity in a bowl of potent broth. NB: if you order by tapping choices on the tablet instead of by talking with the staff, you won’t get to choose your noodle type on the screen, but let the staff know which type of noodle you prefer, and they’ll direct the noodle-man to craft noodles according to your preference.

The menu here offers several options to go with your fresh noodles, each one customizable along the noodle and spice spectrum, with scallions and cilantro added on request.

Order item N2, and you’ll get tender morsels of star-anise-scented braised beef in a clear, flavorful consome, with boiled bok choy and a slick of gently incandescent chili oil glistening on the surface.

N1 is the “House Special,” which pairs your choice of noodles with thin slices of boiled beef—less unctuous than the braised beef option but no less delicious.

Other broth options are the “Shanghai Curry Laksa,” another milder soup tinted yellow with turmeric and spiked with warming spices and a smaller quantity of chili oil, and the “Chef’s Special Spicy,” which tends more toward the fiery, with copious amounts of Sichuan-peppercorn-infused oil added to the bowl.

We also tried an order of D2 Dry Noodles with Minced Pork Sauce, served brothless with an intense spicy pork jam. This might’ve been my favorite - the noodles are al-dente until the last bite, and the sauce is as if chili crisp had been invented in Bologna and incorporated into a rich ragu.

Truthfully, I have yet to eat a noodle from Master Gan that I am not enthusiastic about. It is exciting to have such great noodles in Riverside, so exciting that I dare say I’ll become a regular visitor to the Tyler Mall.

Noodles are the foundation of the Master Gan menu, but they also offer some terrific non-noodle options. The highlight for me is their beef roll pancake - the same sliced beef that adorns bowls of soup is wrapped up into a scallion-pancake burrito with cilantro and a hoisin-accented sauce. Delicious.

Dumplings round out the “House Special” menu and are also tasty.

Master Gan is located adjacent to the restrooms deep in the “Terrace Cafe” food court on the second floor of the Galleria at Tyler (do you need the address? It’s 1299 Galleria at Tyler; you can see it from the 91!).  I’m giddy with excitement that they’re here and can’t wait to get back to sample the rest of the menu. So, get thee to the Galleria and slurp your way to paradise.