Ningjin Daliu Noodles 宁津大柳面
Ningjin Daliu Noodles is featured among the local specialties of Shandong.
Ningjin Daliu Noodles (宁津大柳面) are very fine hand-rolled, hand-cut wheat noodles from Ningjin County (宁津县) in Dezhou (德州), Shandong. The Ningjin county government counts them among the county's three famous foods and notes that they are rated a Shandong provincial famous snack; a local saying quoted by Xinhua pairs them with the buns of Changguan (长官) and the donkey meat of Baodian (保店): "长官包子大柳面，要吃驴肉到保店". Both the county and Xinhua date the noodles to the Qianlong reign (乾隆) of the Qing dynasty, more than 200 years ago.
How it is made
Salt and alkali go into the water to make the noodles tougher: cold water in summer, warm in winter. The county adds egg white for a smoother bite. Cooks insist on the "three cleans" (三净) of hands, bowl and flour. The dough is kneaded stiff and rested under a damp cloth, about two and a half hours in winter by the county's account. Xinhua's version, from eighth-generation maker Wang Jinbiao (王金彪), uses high-gluten flour from local hard wheat and rolls the rested dough out to more than 2 metres long.
The sheet is wrapped round the rolling pin and pressed out evenly to about 1 millimetre thick, with millet flour for dusting; the rolling takes about 40 minutes. Cutting follows the rule of pressing lightly and cutting fast, ten cuts to the cun (寸, a traditional Chinese inch). The noodles are cast into a large pot in a fan, turned over once as they come to the boil, lifted out at once and briefly cooled in cold water.
Flavour and texture
The county describes the strands as fine as vermicelli and the colour of young willow, soft yet springy, lying curved like bowstrings in the bowl; the noodles are known as "golden threads round the bowl" (金丝缠碗) and "bowstring noodles" (弓弦面). The county says the cooked noodles can stand five or six hours without sticking together.
How it is eaten
Diners add sauces and small condiments to taste. Xinhua counts 14 small condiments and four sauces; the county groups the bowls as fried-bean-paste, meat-sauce and sesame-paste noodles. Xinhua describes the bean paste for the fried-sauce topping as made from soybeans fermented for a year, then fried slowly until it breaks into crumbly grains. Xinhua ran its feature at the summer solstice, and the county page links the dish to the northern custom of eating noodles on that day.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.