Gegao's Blog

Like Italian pasta, Chinese noodles vary in width. They can be thick as chopsticks or thin as toothpicks. When it comes to length, they are usually served long and uncut. This is because long noodles symbolize a long life in Chinese tradition. Noodles are commonly served at birthday celebrations as a birthday cake with its candles in many countries. Since noodles do symbolize long life, it is considered very unlucky to cup up a strand.

Types of noodles:

Hand-pulled noodles:

Hand-pulled noodle is usually served with flavoured thick stock, such as mutton stock and hotpot stock. During wintertime, northern Chinese consume hand-pulled noodle frequently as they believe this dish will provide warmth and extra energy. In order to make hand-pulled noodle, you simple hold and stretch out paste in both hands and whirling it around several times. Then you fold and refold the paste repeatedly. Eventually the paste is transformed into long, thin, noodles.

Rice-noodle:

In comparison with hand-pulled noodle, rice-noodle is heavily consumed by Southern Chinese. Since their cooking methods involve boil and steam, the cuisine is considered as healthier and less flavoured (Northern Chinese cooking method involves more deep-fried, stir-fried).

Guilin Rice Noodle is a representative. This dish contains dried nuts, spring onion, chilli, pickled beans and stock. There are many restaurants around the country serve this dish to customers, however, you have to go to Guilin to try the authentic rice-noodle dish.