Take a food trek to Lee Lee

To find everything we needed to make our favorite Szechuan noodles - in one trip.

After all, there's been major buzz about Lee Lee and how it is a Chinese food lover's dream.

Lee Lee's first store opened in Chandler 15 years ago and expanded in 2008 with a second one in Peoria.

The Tucson location - the only one planned at this time - opened in December and is the company's first foray out of the Phoenix area.

Shopping list in hand, my 18-year-old nephew, Walter, his vegetarian girlfriend, Rachel, and I strolled through the big entrance. Our eyes immediately went to the colorful produce department.

The huge section has long rows of gleaming items that demand they be touched, inhaled, purchased, cooked, eaten. Most of them weren't called for in the Szechuan noodles, but what's a little improvising?

Tall stalks of lemongrass ($1 a stalk) sat in a bucket of water to keep fresh. They looked as though they had been harvested that day.

Bok choy, pale green, leafy, sturdy, beckoned.

Fresh seaweed, an impressive emerald green, just begged to jump into the cart and be taken home for a soup.

Fresh shiitake mushrooms ($3.99 for 8 ounces) went into the cart, and long Chinese beans (just $1.89 a pound) followed.

Items kept piling up - we had gotten off track. Back to our one-shop challenge, and a quest for dark soy sauce began.

And right off the bat, distraction again: The most impressive fish case in existence. Really. We've been to the Fulton Fish Market in New York City; Lee Lee is solid competition. The long, gleaming case had carp, bass, squid, salmon - you name it, it was there, most of them whole with glassy eyes staring out at you. The fish monger even had live fish in a tank - striped bass, tilapia, catfish.

Then it was the meat case. Nearly every part of the pig - including the stomach, tongue and blood - was glistening in the case. And there were chicken feet and duck gizzards.

But back to the dark soy.

Lee Lee groups foods by nation, rather than by type, so sometimes it can be a chore finding what you want. On an earlier visit we spent a good 20 minutes searching for hoisin sauce. After a query, directions - incorrect as it turns out - were given. A second query, however, and we were escorted to exactly the right spot.

Still in search of soy, we came across the most wondrous array of noodles - rice and wheat, wide and skinny, short and long.

Then Walter and Rachel saw the huge choice of tofu - silken and regular (silken is the Japanese tofu and is softer and more delicate than the regular), cooked and raw, marinated and not. They began to fantasize about the vegetable and tofu dish they could improvise. More items not called for in the recipe went into the cart.

But no dark soy yet.

We wandered the wide aisles. We passed jars of kimchi, shrimp balls, oxtail, and palm sugar.

We found the rice vinegar ($1.79), the sesame oil ($4.99), fresh ginger (99 cents a pound), the crispy peanuts (79 cents for 5 ounces), rice noodles ($1.83 for a little more than two pounds), and the light soy ($2.35). But the dark soy was elusive.

By this time, it was approaching 8 p.m.

Sans the dark soy, we rushed home to cook sauteed veggies and tofu, and the spicy noodles - all pretty wonderful, by the way.

In spite of our minor failure, we unanimously agreed that Lee Lee was a paradise and demands repeated explorations.

Who knows - maybe the dark soy sauce will be the first thing we find next time.

Szechuan Noodles

Kathleen Allen has been making this recipe, or a variation of it, for years.

Serves: 4-6

• 1 lb. Chinese-style noodles (fettuccini works, too)

• 2 tablespoons dark sesame oil

Dressing

• 6 tablespoons peanut butter

• 1/4 cup water

• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce

• 6 tablespoons dark soy sauce (I just used the light)

• 6 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste - Lee Lee has it, but I usually make it by grinding toasted sesame seeds with olive oil)

• 1/2 cup dark sesame oil

• 2 tablespoons sherry

• 4 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

• 1/4 cup honey

• 4 medium cloves garlic, minced

• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger (don't even think about substituting dry)

• 1-2 tablespoons hot pepper oil

• 1/2 cup hot water

Garnish

• 1 carrot, peeled and shaved.

• 1/2 firm medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and julienned

• 1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts, coarsely chopped

• 2 green onions, thinly sliced

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling unsalted water over medium heat to an al dente state.

Drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Drain again and toss the noodles with 2 tablespoons of the dark sesame oil - this keeps them from sticking together. Put aside.

Combine all ingredients except hot water in a blender or food processor until smooth. Slowly add the water until it's the consistency of whipping cream.

Before serving, toss noodles with sauce. Top with cucumber, peanuts, green onion, and carrot shavings. Serve at room temperature.

If you go

Lee Lee Oriental Supermart

• 1990 W. Orange Grove Road, 638-8328

• Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily.