Laibin River Snail Rice Noodles 来宾螺蛳粉
Laibin River Snail Rice Noodles is featured among the local specialties of Guangxi.
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Laibin River Snail Rice Noodles (来宾螺蛳粉) are the bowls of rice noodles in river-snail broth served in Laibin (来宾), a city in the heart of central Guangxi. China Weather Network's Guangxi station calls the dish a well-known food of Xiangzhou County (象州), one of Laibin's counties, and since 2023 Laibin has run cooking courses in it for young people from Taiwan.
Ingredients
The Xiangzhou version, as China Weather Network describes it, puts smooth white rice noodles together with sour bamboo shoots, wood ear fungus, peanuts, fried tofu skin, daylily flowers and green vegetables, seasoned to a moderately rich sour and spicy taste and finished with the broth in which the river snails were simmered.
In Laibin city, Laibin Evening News (来宾晚刊) visited a long-established noodle shop on Xinxing Road (新兴路), where the smell of river snail noodles hits diners as soon as they walk in. The cook blanched the noodles and greens, drained them and added stock, with tofu skin, sour bamboo shoots, sour long beans and daylily among the toppings. Bowls come loaded with braised extras such as pig's trotters, fried tofu puffs and braised eggs, and regulars ask for more chilli or for no sour bamboo shoots.
Flavour and texture
China Weather Network sums up the Xiangzhou bowl as sour, spicy and smooth. A diner quoted by Laibin Evening News praised the chewy noodles at one shop on Xiyi Road (西一路) and the fresh, fragrant snail broth served with them. A Taiwanese trainee quoted by China News Service put the essence of the flavour as fresh, fragrant, sour, spicy and refreshing.
Laibin's cooking courses
China News Service reported in July 2025 that 34 people from Taiwan took part that year in a river snail rice noodle cooking course at the Laibin Huizhi Vocational Training School (汇智职业培训学校), the third year in a row that Laibin had run it; more than a hundred had attended over the three years. Trainees fry sour bamboo shoots in oil, prepare the toppings, simmer the broth, blanch the noodles and make the chilli oil, and some have since opened river snail noodle shops in Taipei, Taoyuan and Taichung.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.