San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles

By J. Kenji López-Alt

Updated Feb. 18, 2025

San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles
Sang An for The New York Times. Food Stylist; Simon Andrews.
Total Time
15 minutes
Rating
4(10,384)
Comments
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These noodles, adapted from the cookbook "The Wok" by J. Kenji López-Alt, and based on the noodle dish originally created and served by Helene An at San Francisco’s Thanh Long restaurant, are extraordinarily simple and delicious on their own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fancy them up a bit. They go very well with seafood, and some raw, shell-​on shrimp stir-​fried along with the garlic right from the start would be an excellent addition. You could also add a few spoonfuls of tarako or mentaiko — ​Japanese salted pollock roe. Sushi-​style flying fish roe (tobiko) or salmon roe (ikura) would also be a great addition, as would chunks of crab or lobster meat, or even Western-​style caviar (if you’re feeling flush).

Featured in: These Garlic Noodles Cross Cultures, but Are Deeply San Franciscan

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 4tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 20medium garlic cloves, minced or smashed in a mortar and pestle
  • 4teaspoons oyster sauce
  • 2teaspoons light soy sauce or shoyu
  • 2teaspoons fish sauce
  • 1pound dry spaghetti
  • 1ounce grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano (heaping ¼ cup)
  • A small handful of thinly sliced scallions (optional)
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

578 calories; 15 grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 91 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 19 grams protein; 593 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Melt the butter in a wok or saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce and fish sauce, and stir to combine. Remove from the heat.

  2. Step 2

    Meanwhile, bring 1½ inches of water to a boil in a 12-​inch skillet or sauté pan over high heat. (Alternatively, heat up just enough water to cover the spaghetti in a large Dutch oven or saucepan.) Add the pasta, stir a few times to make sure it’s not clumping, and cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente (about 2 minutes short of the recommended cook time on the package).

  3. Step 3

    Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the garlic sauce, along with whatever water clings to it. (Reserve the pasta water in the skillet.) Increase the heat to high, add the cheese to the wok, and stir with a wooden spatula or spoon and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified, about 30 seconds. If the sauce looks too watery, let it keep reducing. If it looks greasy, splash some more cooking water into it and let it re-​emulsify. Stir in the scallions (if using), and serve immediately.

Ratings

4 out of 5
10,384 user ratings
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Comments

Ian from Salt Spring Island, BC Canada

I’ve been using my meat tenderizing mallet for smashing garlic lately. Turns it into a creamy paste. Does a great job and I’ll use it with this recipe.

Gigi

As a Vietnamese immigrant whose parents owned a restaurant for decades in Denver, I would like to add another essential condiment/sauce in the canon of Vietnamese cooking called Maggi. My family makes this dish using Maggi and not fish sauce. Just thought I'd offer this up as another way to make these yummy noodles. Maggi, in its iconic curvaceous dark brown bottle, is not made of soy but wheat protein. You will often that tangy saltiness in Vietnamese sandwiches.

Eileen

I keep a large bulb of garlic, roots intact, in a small vase (one that held a hyacinth bulb purchased at Aldi works well). Use the tall green shoots from the garlic instead of scallions to add flavor and greenery to any number of dishes. The roots that grow swirl in a lovely pattern in the bottom of the vase, and the bulb will continue to produce shoots for weeks.

Kathleen P

This was a hit! I reduced the amount of pasta but kept everything else the same. I used my mini food processor to prepare the garlic. Served with jumbo shrimp sauteed in butter. Pretty quick and easy (though rather a lot of cleanup).

Macie

Definitely double the sauce next time. Try hoisin instead of oyster for a different flare as suggested. Try Maggi instead of soy sauce. Needs more pasta water and cheese than I had planned. Try the cooking noodles as per the recipe. Try adding spice?

ben

If you’ve lived in San Francisco for a while and visited the restaurants that serve these noodles, you’ll likely have learned the local lore about just how hard the family who runs this restaurant has worked to keep this recipe a secret - according to some, all the way back to Vietnam. I find it in very, very poor taste that Lopez-Alt went out of his way to sleuth this. I’ve stopped using any of his recipes as a result.

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