A new Alexandria restaurant specializing in Asian noodles, Yunnan by Potomac, A Noodle House, will celebrate its grand opening Saturday starting at 12 noon, at 814 N. Fairfax St. in Old Town North.
The owner and general manager is Dr. Zongmin Li, who grew up in Yunnan, China. She has always been a devotee of Yunnan’s mixian, and has enjoyed sharing the distinct and flavorful noodle dishes with friends and family. Now she is pursuing a long-standing dream of bringing Yunnan cuisine — mixian rice noodles in particular — to American diners.
The new restaurant specializes in the rice noodle dishes of Yunnan Province in China’s far southwest. Mixian (rice noodle) is the base for a huge variety of dishes at the new eatery,
prepared with savory sauces and broths, braised meats, Chinese chives and other ingredients. Mixian is the “soul food” of Yunnan, and for Yunnanese far from home, their comfort food. Vegetarian options are also available.
Image courtesy of Jia C
Yunnan by Potomac, A Noodle House
Check out the menu at: yunnanbypotomac.com. The restaurant's hours are:
- Monday throughThursday: 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- Friday and Saturday: noon – 3 p.m. and 5:30 – 10 p.m.
- Sunday: Lunch is served from noon – 3 p.m.
Here's a bit about the new restaurant, from their website:
All restaurants seem to have a story. In our case, the idea for Yunnan by Potomac took shape gradually. Our owner and general manager Zongmin Li had enjoyed Yunnan food from childhood in Yunnan and had introduced it to her husband and business partner John Bruce. It was however unavailable in restaurants where we lived and, like many Yunnanese abroad, Zongmin longed for it. On our visits to family in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, she would sometimes disappear at odd hours. Concerned at first, John relaxed once he learned that she could always be found in a nearby noodle shop, crouched over a streaming bowl of spicy mixian.
Zongmin had always talked about the need for a Yunnan noodle house near us, but things only got serious when we lived in Beijing in 2013-2016 while she managed Ford Foundation’s research program on natural resources management in western China. Eating out in Beijing, we found that Yunnan eateries were popping up in the capital. Zongmin’s work visits to Yunnan gave us an opportunity to explore local dishes more systematically.
A year after our return to Alexandria, we had made the decision to open a restaurant specializing in mixian noodles. The first on the east coast had just opened in Manhattan and was doing very well. When we found that none existed in the Greater Washington Area, we knew we had to seize the day. In Alexandria, we could offer our food to a community that dined out often and had cosmopolitan tastes.
In April 2018 we flew to Yunnan for three weeks, not just tasting mixian dishes but slipping into restaurant kitchens for discussion and observation of ingredients and food preparation processes with local chefs. We returned home to learn, to our delight, that the owner of Broscato’s Deli was retiring. It was providential and we grabbed the space. We began renovations in October 2018 and our opening is February 2.
We are excited. The menu is brief and still a work in progress. It will grow and change, partly in response to your comments and recommendations. A suggestion box is sitting near the entrance and a form for comments is being distributed to diners. Many thanks for your suggestions!
Zongmin received her masters from University of Beijing, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the early 90’s to pursue her doctoral studies in economic development.
\After receiving her PhD in development economics came two decades of work with USAID, the World Bank, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and Ford Foundation in China, Africa and Central Asia. Her work has focused on the role of property rights and natural resource management in development.
