Polydish city guide

Best Tantan-men in London

“Sichuan dan dan noodles, rewritten in Japanese: sesame-creamy, chilli-slicked, politely ferocious.”

What the real thing tastes like

Japan took Sichuan's dan dan mian and gave it a broth: sesame paste rounds the chilli oil into a creamy, brick-red soup over noodles, topped with spiced minced pork and greens. The málà numbing is dialled down, the sesame dialled up — a translation, not a copy, and now a ramen category of its own.

1,409 voices, one story

Reviewers map each shop on the sesame-to-chilli axis and defend their coordinates. The creamy-spicy contradiction is the draw everyone describes, and the spiced pork sinking into the last third of broth is called the bowl's buried ending.