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Alison Cook’s Curbside Chronicles: Starting a relationship with MDK Noodles

Dusk had gathered a deep blue around its shoulders as I pulled out of the parking lot at Myung Dong Kyoja, the 5-month-old Korean noodle restaurant in the heart of Asiatown. For a full minute or so, I stopped before turning onto Bellaire Boulevard, transfixed by rank upon rank of blackbirds assembling on the utility wires.

Our guide for where to get great noodles and epic pulls around Houston

At MDK Noodles in Asiatown, the knife-cut noodles, or kalguksu, arrive in a shiny metal bowl all but submerged in an opaque chicken broth. Digging my metal chopsticks deep into the bowl, I grab a thick helping of noodles, pulling upward so that a cascade of glistening, Instagram-worthy strands dangles before me. As I inhale the silken strands from end to end, they glide effortlessly across my lips, and it’s glorious. I’m reminded of that famous spaghetti-eating scene in “Lady and the Tramp,” and that’s me in this moment, slurping one strand at a time, like a 5-year-old child who’s just discovered the most entertaining form of eating.