$8.99 If only because it’s what bacon gets carved from, pork belly is often very crisp and very salty, or flavored just as boldly in some other way. Dry and crackled is how I too often encounter it, as though cooks are serving a concept instead of an ingredient (and the concept is “lack of subtlety”). Not so at Noodle Lab, which offers an appetizer of two steamed baozi gua boa taco-style, filled with anise soy-braised pork belly, green onion and vegetable slivers drizzled with hoisin sauce. Under founder Audrey Yap, Noodle Lab vegetables are crisp and everything else is soft, the meat and dough melding into something that’s almost too mild. Noodle Lab also avoids overwhelming with sauce, a relief to anyone grossed out by the sweet-and-sour chicken goop still common in “Chinese” food. On the side is a cabbage salad with a ghostlike and guiltless measure of lemon vinaigrette.
Noodle Lab, 238 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge
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