Braised Pork Noodles - 卤肉面

At home we had a great Chinese cookbook whose author insisted on transliterating the 卤 into 'looo', and devoted a whole chapter to describing the technique and the tradition. This 'lu' refers to slow simmering in a flavoured stock. Much attention is paid to the seasonings and the stock is often kept and reused repeatedly. The pork in these noodles, while rather crowded out by the bamboo shoot, tasted really strongly of star anise (八角).