Despite their differences, these two dishes represent a single item on the picture menu: "pork noodle" ($5). The meatier version was procured last winter, the better garnished but less porky, several months later. Their common bonds are ribbonlike "belt" noodles, hand-stretched on the spot. Boiled, the irregular, almost ragged noodles are still very chewy and must be eaten soon after serving, before they become clumpy. They're a bellyful.
Corner-cutting in the meat-sauce department is almost certainly a product of close competition; on a given afternoon, as many as four Queens-based carts will set up near Columbia's Broadway gates and beckon the university's large Chinese-born student population. Auntie Wang (王阿姨, wong Ah-yee) is the only vendor whose name isn't rendered in English, but young and willing translators abound. And, as indicated, the menu is presented in English, too, with the standard caveat that pictures are for illustrative purposes only. Your serving may vary.
The Henan-born proprietors of the Auntie Wang cart also apparently run Taste of Northern China, a new, smallish storefront at 88 East Broadway. Chowhound squid kun made the connection based on the commonality of one rare menu item, "hot dry noodle," and, even more tellingly, a shared telephone number.
Auntie Wang
Cart near Broadway and 117th St., Manhattan
646-229-8107
Hours irregular; most days, lunchtime through dinnertime
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