Liangzhou Cold Noodles 凉州凉面
Liangzhou Cold Noodles is featured among the local specialties of Gansu.
Photo adjustments
Full frame retained; EXIF orientation normalized, proportionally resized to at most 800 pixels and converted to WebP. No generated pixels or subject changes. Cards may crop the display.
Liangzhou Cold Noodles (凉州凉面) are alkaline wheat noodles eaten cold under a hot gravy in Liangzhou (凉州), the old name of Wuwei (武威) in Gansu. The Wuwei city government says that many cities have cold noodles, but the Wuwei kind is a style of its own, and that locals recommend it to visitors.
How it is made
A 2020 Gansu Daily survey of Liangzhou noodles defines cold noodles as noodles made with alkali (碱), boiled and then topped with gravy (卤汁). The cooked noodles are golden yellow, springy when lifted and loose once they fall into the bowl, which a 2023 Gansu Daily feature likens to a nest of gold threads.
Ingredients
The gravy (卤子) comes in a meat and a vegetarian version. It holds pork or beef slices, potato chunks, tofu, green beans, carrot and dried Chinese cabbage, and a spoonful of vinegar gravy (醋卤) goes on as well.
How it is eaten
A proper bowl is filled to heaping. The gravy is ladled on hot, straight from the pot, while the noodles stay cold, so the bowl is warming without being too hot to eat; two stirs with the chopsticks coat every strand. Gansu Daily describes the flavour as sour and hot, with chewy noodles and a strong taste.
Where it comes from
A legend recorded by Gansu Daily credits the general Zuo Zongtang (左宗棠) with the cold-noodle, hot-gravy combination: during his long campaigns he is said to have thought it up as a quick way to feed his soldiers.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.