Talk:Shahe fen

Guo tiao

Is guo tiao/kway tiao a synonym for these noodles that should be added? Maybe from one of the Min An dialects like Chaozhou? Or is it a name for a dish made from shahe fen? Badagnani 06:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

"Shahe fen" and "guotiao" are two totally different names in the Chinese language, rather than the same Chinese characters transliterated based on different spoken dialects. "Shahe fen" (沙河粉) is the name used to refer to that kind of noodles in southern China. But in other parts of China, the term "guotiao" (粿條) seems to be more commonly used. - Alanmak 18:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Chaos

There's no way any native English speaker could confuse "chao fun" with the word "chaos." Because "chaos" is always pronounced "KAY-oss" (the "ch" like a K, as in the Greek letter "chi") whereas "chao" is pronounced "CHOW." Badagnani 19:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

粿粉片 (粿汁)

I've got a package of something called 粿粉片 (guo fen pian), which are dried wide, short rice noodles similar to guo tiao. The package (made in Thailand) is labeled in Chinese, English ("Rice Flakes"), and Vietnamese (Banh Cuon Kho). An alternate name is given in parentheses: (粿汁), the second character meaning "gravy." I am thinking that these noodles are intended to be stir fried with vegetables and meat, and a gravy-like sauce. Can a native Chinese speaker tell me if this is the same product (under a slightly different name) as guo tiao? If so, should these two terms be added as Chinese synonyms to "guotiao"? Badagnani 08:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Romanization

I recommend removing the non-pinyin romanization "shaa-her-fern" unless it can be stated which dialect this is (Cantonese? Min Nan?). I understand that English speakers unfamiliar with pinyin pronunciation conventions might mistake the "e" vowels for the English pronunciation (as in "egg") but "shaa-her-fern" isn't much of an improvement and pinyin isn't that difficult. Badagnani 16:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed, I suspect it's an ad-hoc "phonetic" spelling of "shā hé fěn" based on non-rhotic English. LDHan 19:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Box

The box is messed up. The romanizations are hidden and should not be, the alternate name is not labeled as "alternate name," and the yellow and green clash horribly with the blue bar. Badagnani 23:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Kway Tiao

Right now Kway Tiao and Ho Fun both redirect here - I think this is an error. Based on The New Food Lover's Companion: More Than 6,700 A-to-Z Entries Describe Foods, Cooking Techniques, Herbs, Spices, Desserts, Wines, and the Ingredients for Pleasurable Dining:

Medium-wide noodles (known as rice fettuccine, ban pho, ho fun, haw fun, gway tio, kway teow, kui teow, lai fen and sen lek) are considered an all-purpose noodle. They’re used in a wide variety of dishes (stir-frys, soups and salads) and as an accompaniment to meat dishes.

I've found a couple of other cookbook sources that confirm kway tiao as an appropriate noodle for Pho, but they describe it as a fresh noodle whereas the above source describes it as a type of dried rice stick noodle. The source goes on:

Rice river noodles are made from rice flour and wheat starch and are also called chow fun guo tiao, fen noodles, hu tieu, khao pun, kuay taew, rice ribbon noodles, sha he fen and sha ho fen. They’re sold in sheets or in various widths cut from large sheets. As sheets they can be used to wrap meats and vegetables as in some DIM SUM dishes. When cut into thinner strips they’re used like rice stick noodles. Rice river noodles are available fresh, usually with a light coating of oil to prevent them from sticking together or drying.

Including the very similar kuay taew. I don't know if there is any difference between the "kway teow" rice sticks and the "kuay taew" fresh noodles since the source I have transliterates as "kway tiao" and I don't have time to investigate further right now, but it seems ho fun might need to be redirected in any case. Seraphim System ^(talk) 23:59, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

The source above (Google Books preview) refers to "ban pho" (actually bánh phở) as a medium-wide noodle, seemingly contrasting it with "rice river noodles" that are made into sheets or cut into thin strips. In Vietnamese, the sheet form is essentially bánh ướt or bánh phở cuốn (by analogy with bánh cuốn), though there are slight differences in texture. Bánh phở is the result of cutting it into strips, whatever the size, though a wide enough version might be called bánh phở áp chảo after the dish that it gets made into. Bánh phở áp chảo can be wide and thick like the "thinner" version of shahe fen shown in File:HofanUpClose.jpg in the infobox. Bánh phở tươi is typically much, much thinner than that, and fresh rather than dried, as the name implies. vi:Bánh phở claims a typical thickness of 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in) and width of 3 to 4 millimetres (0.12 to 0.16 in), which sounds about right to me, but it gives no source for those measurements. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 00:17, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I also find it confusing that "Kway tiao" would redirect here instead of to "Kuy teav". Kway tiao and kuy teav can both refer to either a type of noodle or a soup strongly (but not exclusively) associated with the noodle. By contrast, shahe fun is strongly associated with stir fry, not soups. The "Names" section of this article performs some gymnastics to distinguish shahe fen and kway teow; I think that would be unnecessary if this article were to take its own hatnote's advice and let "Kuy teav" discuss kway teow and its cognates. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 08:11, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

The other possibility is merging this article with Rice noodles - and possibly pointing some of the redirects to certain dishes if they are strongly affiliated with that regional dish (like kway tiao and Char kway teow). I'm not sure we need separate articles for flat rice noodle and rice noodle right now since both articles are short enough to merge.Seraphim System ^(talk) 08:19, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

The most common Chinese dish based on shahe fen also has its own article, "Beef chow fun". Assuming the various rice noodles have distinct enough production methods and usages that they could be distinguished apart from their dishes, then there would ideally be enough content on each kind of noodle to have a separate article with information on the noodle's production as well as its usage. Articles like "Lai fun" are a start at that. But if we do that, then we can't conflate noodles that have tenuous relation to each other in the same article. As it stands, this article pivots quickly from the noodle to a Chinese dish and then goes into an unwikified, unsourced discourse that we probably wouldn't be able to keep anyways. By analogy, "Bánh mì" used to also pivot quickly from an ingredient (the bread) to a dish (the sandwich), but the article is a lot more coherent now that it focuses primarily on the dish. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 18:48, 16 July 2018 (UTC)