One-man noodle house in Christchurch’s Chinatown promises ‘no customer service’

Saturday, 6 April 2024

A noodle bar in Chinatown in Riccarton has a no name, a limited menu and uniform pricing.

This noodle bar in Christchurch’s unofficial Chinatown has no name, not much of a menu and a self-confessed “short-tempered” owner… so what makes people queue for the food? WEI SHAO reports.

Canyi Lin is the owner and chef at a no-name noodle place, situated at the far end of a narrow alley in Christchurch’s Chinatown at Church Corner.

The seasoned chef is known for his quick action - and preference for simplicity.

“I am really short-tempered. I become annoyed easily when people muck around with ordering and making decisions,” said the 50-year-old, originally from Guangdong, China, in 1996.

“So, I give my customers just two options: yes, they dine here; or no, they go. In this way, I save more time and am able to charge less.”

It is difficult to categorise Lin’s place as either an eatery or a kitchen, as it lacks a traditional dining room for customers, aside from eight two-person tables along the alley.

Canyi Lin takes orders from customers at a no-name eatery at the end corner of a narrow alley at Chinatown in Church Corner, Christchurch.

At the entrance of his establishment, a sign reads: “One-person noodle house. Thus, no customer service. Help yourself.”

Another sign states: “Neighbourhood price: $12.”

Lin claimed his noodles were “the cheapest in New Zealand, if not the best”. Many people from other cities like Auckland and Queenstown were usually shocked at the low price - “just two thirds of the price there”, he said.

There are only five dishes on the menu. Close-up shots of food with Lin’s handwritten notes - saying ‘sold out’ or ‘on sale’ - are laminated and hung on the wall.

The eatery did a brisk trade, with Lin selling 100 bowls of noodles a day, on average.

Lin opens his eatery at 10am each day. Closing time is when the noodles are gone.

It opens at 10am, seven days a week, and closes when the noodles sell out.

“It depends on the day. As long as I've sold all the food, I close. The earliest could be 12.30, and the latest 2pm.”

Lin said his noodles were “for labourers”, the latest buzzword on Chinese social media that commuters, desk jockeys, and “overtime dogs” sarcastically call themselves.

“I want to simplify the dining experience as much as possible. Why waste your money and time for the whole process of ordering, cooking and serving?”

Lin’s noodle place serves beef noodle soup, spinach wonton soup, dan dan noodle soup, pork intestine noodle soup, and honeycomb noodle soup.

Lin has been in the restaurant business for 30-odd years.

It took him “around one minute” to make a bowl of noodles and complete the following tasks: take the order, cook the noodles, put them in the bowl, and grab chopsticks for the noodles and a spoon for the soup.

He will take the noodles to the table, but only if no other orders have come through.

“I don’t have time to check whether payment really went through. Most of the time they did and I trust my customers,” he said.

Lin says he makes the cheapest noodles in New Zealand, if not the best.

In the past eight years, Lin had increased his prices “once” - from $10 to $12 per dish.

Third-year university student Alexander Zhang is a regular customer. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to cook, so I come to Lin’s place. It has the best noodles in town,” he said.

The home-style noodle soup evoked feelings of nostalgia, and reminded him of similar dining experiences at a street stall in China, Zhang said.

Local Leigh Downes said parking was “horrendous” at Church Corner, but he still stopped by Lin’s eatery two or three times a week.

“Whenever I come here, I'll grab a bowl of noodles. The beef noodle is so tasty.”

He had not had the guts yet to try the pork “intastine” noodle soup.

Intastine was obviously a typo, but Lin said he did not have time to fix it.

When talking about whether his customers appreciated his simple - or zero - approach to customer service, Lin said he had not heard anything negative.

“But I still recall a customer taking eight minutes to decide on his order from my five-dish menu. Eight minutes, can you believe it? He never came back.”