Hi everyone,
We got a chance to tour the Tsue Chong Fortune Cookie and Noodle factory in Seattle's International District. They're family owned and have been making noodles for 100 years.
We got up nice and early and lined up outside:
Soon our tour guide arrived. He gave us a quick history of the company, then led us inside:
He took us to the 3rd floor - apparently it's a bit quieter there. We started at the place where they make rice noodles and fried chow mein noodles:
After trying a couple fried chow mein samples, we then moved on to the wheat noodle area. After giving us some sample noodles to munch on, he showed us the machines that cut the noodles and the noodle drying area:
We then moved on to the fortune cookie machines! They used to make their fortune cookies by hand. Then - they got nine machines - four of which are working today. The rest have been cannibalized for parts, since the company that made them is no longer in business.
One of the machines no longer folds the cookies - it just makes round discs. They call these "unfortune cookies". They're still quite good!
These machines make one cookie at a time. They had a newer machine that makes 4 cookies at a time. You can see it over there:
After trying some fortune cookie samples, our tour was over. We wandered around the corner to the small factory store:
and bought some cookies and noodles to take home. Then - we escaped into a beautiful sunny Seattle day!
Dana surprised at the sun, maybe?
This was a fun tour! And - it was nice visiting a part of Seattle history!
Cheers,
Paul
