Snail Noodle Soup

Thanks to some curious historical pigeonholing, Liuzhou is best known in China as a producer of coffins. This reputation even makes its way into a well-known Chinese saying about the key to a happy life that goes: 生在苏州, 活在杭州, 吃在广州, 死在柳州. This translates to something like “be born in Suzhou [a city reputed to produce the most beautiful people], live in Hangzhou [which is renowned for its scenic location], eat in Guangzhou [the seat of world-famous Cantonese cuisine], and die in Liuzhou.” Although the coffin industry casts a macabre pall over the city’s history and culture, it is not the only game in town; Liuzhou is also known for its delicious snail soup, known to locals as luó sī fĕn. 

Most people who hear about this snail soup expect at least a handful of the eponymous gastropods to lie in wait, lurking squishily within the shimmering, murky broth. This assumption is actually wrong, as snail meat is not a direct ingredient of luó sī fĕn. In fact, the soup gets its name because its base is snail stock. River snails and pork bones are stewed for hours with vendor-specific combinations of spices (generally including cardamom, fennel, star anise, cloves, pepper, and other similar spices) to create the distinctive broth. In addition to the snail broth, the recipe for luó sī fĕn includes a thick tangle of skinny rice noodles, crispy fried tofu skin, peanuts, pickled vegetables (this is Guangxi, after all), fresh green vegetables, and heaps of chili oil. This is usually a very spicy bowl of noodles with some intriguing contrasts of taste (spicy, sour, and faintly musty) and texture (slippery, crunchy, and soft). You can buy luó sī fĕn in nearby cities like Nanning and Guilin, but if you want the finest bowl of snail soup money can buy, I’d recommend making a stop right in Liuzhou. If nothing else, it will give you something other than coffins to remember the city for.

Old Friend Noodles

You have to love a food with a good back-story. Regardless of the story's historical veracity, it adds a fun context for a dish. The signature street food in Nanning, Guangxi—Old Friend Noodles (老友粉) (lao you fen)—happens to be a food with a fun little back-story to it. The story, as told to me by my friend Tiantian, goes something like this:

A long time ago, a man named Zhou owned a tea shop. Every day for many years an old man came to drink tea and soon became friends with Zhou. One day, the old man didn't come to the tea shop. Zhou went to the man's house and found him deathly ill. Wanting to do something for his ailing friend, Zhou went back to his tea house and whipped up a dish of rice noodles, bamboo shoots, garlic, fermented beans, chili, beef, and peppers. He ran back to the old man's house and fed him the noodle dish. Miraculously, the noodles cured the man of his illness and he lived or many more years. Zhou's dish became legendary in Nanning for its healing properties and is now a staple throughout the city.

I don't know if that story has any basis in reality or not, but I don't think that matters. It's a nice origin tale for a yummy dish. These days, the dish looks like this:

The rice noodles are long and slippery, like fettuccine. The noodles are soft when the dish is served, and they slither right down your throat with ease. As you can see here, they do tend to clump together, so you'll have to do some good old fashioned Chinese noodle slurping.

The soup base is oily and moderately spicy. To my mind, the bamboo is the most distinctive feature of this dish. The bamboo slices are a bit sour and add a firmer texture to the dish.

It's worth noting that locals do believe that the old friend noodles have some salubrious properties, possibly attributable to the spicy chili opening up your pores (although there are much spicier dishes available nearby if you're trying that theory out).

This dish shouldn't cost you more than about 10 yuan. It's available all over the city, but the best is in the fantastic night market on Zhongshan Lu. The bottom line? If you are looking for a warm, hearty meal with a neat history, this will fill the bill (and you).

Guilin Street Food Festival

The folks over at FoodNut.com recently attended a street food festival in Guilin, China, and wrote up a nice review with lots of delectable looking pictures. I'm particularly intrigued by this one:

Via: www.foodnut.com

What in the world is that stuff? It looks like a sea cucumber and a medieval mace had a litter of pups. Delicious.

I've been to Guilin (you should go too--it's beautiful), but I wasn't fortunate enough to see any street food festivals while I was there. Actually, come to think of it, I had very little street food there. A real tragedy, that. I did have this yummy seafood on a stick, but not much else:

Whole crabs on the left, whole fish on the right. 

You are expected to eat the whole thing, shells and bones and all.

I'll be passing through Guilin again later this year, so check back in October or November to see if I was fortunate enough to find some of those foods that the FoodNut.com people did. Especially that weird spiky looking thing I shared above...