Yacheng Sour Rice Noodles 崖城酸粉

Yacheng Sour Rice Noodles (崖城酸粉) are the sour rice-noodle dish of Yacheng (崖城) in western Sanya (三亚), Hainan. Yacheng was the seat of the old Yazhou (崖州) prefecture from the Song dynasty; in 2014 the town was replaced by Yazhou District (崖州区), and Sanya's heritage list records the district's sour noodles as Yazhou sour noodles (崖州酸粉).

Ingredients

Sanya Daily describes Gangmen sour noodles (港门酸粉), also called zhuchangmo (猪肠馍), as a traditional Yazhou dish; Gangmen (港门) is one of the district's villages. The bowl combines baimo (白馍), handmade rice noodles and sweet-potato noodles (地瓜粉), topped with peanuts, dried shrimp, pickled spider-flower greens (白花菜), sesame oil and chopped spring onion. A specially prepared tamarind juice (酸豆汁) is poured over at the end.

Flavour and texture

The sour soup is sweet as well as sour, and cool and refreshing. Sanya Daily writes that for many long-time Sanya residents this sweet-sour taste means New Year and childhood. Sour flavours are a thread through Yazhou cooking: a 2025 Nanhai Net commentary on Yazhou food heritage says local cooks have long used a sour hyacinth-bean sauce and tamarind juice in place of salt, both to relieve the heat of the humid coast and to sharpen the appetite.

Where it comes from

Rice was plentiful in Yazhou, and the same commentary says it was turned into rice noodles, flat noodles, sour noodles and fried noodles that became the staple of four meals a day. The Yazhou sour noodle making technique (崖州酸粉制作技艺) is on Sanya's municipal list of intangible cultural heritage, and Chinese Wikipedia lists it among the sub-items of Hainan's provincial heritage entry for Hainan rice-noodle cooking (海南粉烹调技艺), with the Sanya Mass Art Centre (三亚市群众艺术馆) among its protecting bodies. Yazhou sour noodles are also among the local foods now sold beyond the district as Yazhou souvenirs.