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They peek out from underneath slices of beef, tofu and barbecued pork, all fanned out like a hand of poker, in a soup-less wonder called Hometown Lu Fen. The sauce is in the bottom of the bowl, and should absolutely be augmented with some of the chopped pickled red chiles in oil served in a small dish on the side. In the string bean mifen, the noodles weave around a fried egg and a scattering of ground Berkshire pork, stir-fried to a crackle with little rounds of sliced, pickled green beans. There is no slick of chile oil on top, and the pale broth looks harmless enough, but once the soup is stirred together it will take the crease out of a pair of newly pressed trousers.

A little red sheaf of dried chile threads bobbing in the wild pepper and beef soup gives you an idea what you are in for, if the name hasn’t already given away the game. But with Hunan Slurp’s noodles, as with Hunanese food generally, heat is part of the message; it’s never the medium.

Stock is to the cook what pitch is to the opera singer, goes a Chinese proverb. Hunan Slurp’s soup stocks are rounded and cloudy from long-boiled bones and meat, and they tend to get better the longer they linger with their toppings. (So do the noodles.)

A master class in the art of broth subtlety is provided by the two-part soup that goes by the under-promising name fish fillet mifen. Part One is an oversize ceramic bowl of milky white pork-and-fish stock strewn with flower petals, pea shoots, purple basil and other fresh herbs. It arrives on a wooden tray next to Part Two, the noodles, which get their own bowl. The broth’s flavor was elusive at first, more a texture than a taste. Within minutes the steamed fish in the broth, together with the herbs, had transformed it into something splendid.