IN an open kitchen in NoLIta, two solemn young men work together in virtual silence up to 16 hours a day, their destinies yoked by noodles.

Michael Hodgkins is a stern, passionate chef from upstate New York, with a dedication to local and organic ingredients. Huacan Chen is an aspiring entrepreneur from Fuzhou in southern China, with a skill that happens to be seriously marketable in New York at the moment: he knows how to spin out endless skeins of la mian, smooth, springy hand-stretched noodles, using nothing but a countertop and his hands.

Hung Ry, a restaurant that opened in October, serves noodle soups that brilliantly combine Mr. Chen’s noodles and Mr. Hodgkins’s broths: deep brews of oxtail, duck belly, roasted squash, star anise, ginger, tamarind, dried chilies and mushrooms. They are the most recent expression  building on David Chang’s ramen and Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s chicken-coconut soup  of the East-West dialogue that has produced some of New York’s most memorable modern dishes.

Image Huacan Chen stretching out skeins of noodle dough in the kitchen of Hung Ry, a restaurant that opened in October in NoLIta. Credit... Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Because of Mr. Chen’s skills, they are also a high expression of traditional Chinese noodle arts. Even a thousand years ago, there were late-night noodle shops in many Chinese cities; today, niu rou la mian, beef soup with hand-pulled noodles in the hearty style of western China, is a ubiquitous dish. There is a staggering array of fresh noodles served all over China  far beyond the familiar lo mein and chow fun  and more and more of them are popping up here.