Beef Noodle Soup 牛肉面

Beef Noodle Soup (牛肉面) is part of the morning-tea table in Wuzhong (吴忠), Ningxia (宁夏). Xinhua describes the savoury broth alongside babao tea (八宝茶), snacks and pastries. Pulled noodles, beef and tea are brought together in a meal that developed from local noodle shops.

How it is eaten

At Manwanxiang (满碗香), diners choose pulled noodles of different thicknesses alongside small dishes, pastries and different flavours of babao tea. In Xinhua’s May 2024 interview, manager Sheng Li (盛利) highlighted the shop’s separate hot-beef dish: rib meat with alternating fat and lean, cooked with its own seasoning mixture. The beef is cut and served quickly on warmed plates to preserve its texture.

Where it comes from

In the 1980s, people from Lanzhou (兰州) brought pulled noodles to Ningxia. Wuzhong cooks adapted the meal by combining those noodles with babao tea. Manwanxiang followed that development, growing from a quick-service noodle restaurant into a morning-tea establishment.