🍽️ Sea-Anemone Sweet-Potato Noodle

Sea anemone with sweet-potato noodles.

Sea-Anemone Sweet-Potato Noodle is a seafood staple from the coast of Taizhou, Zhejiang. The so-called 'sea garlic' is not garlic at all but a kind of sea anemone that burrows in tidal-flat mud, named for its whitish, garlic-bulb shape. It is cooked with handmade sweet-potato noodles (dried yam threads) in a bone-based broth reduced to a milky white; the anemone has a crisp yet tender bite with intense marine savor, while the noodles are slippery and soup-absorbing. The bowl turns out full of white broth and generous ingredients, carrying the mellow seafood richness of the coast together with the hearty substance of yam starch. It appears often at Taizhou seafood restaurants and is a fisherman's flavor unfamiliar to outsiders but worth trying, best enjoyed piping hot with both noodles and broth.