Lanzhou Noodle The Celebrated Hand-Pulled Chinese Food Culture

It was a cold morning with the weather getting closer to zero degrees. I needed motivation, beyond the career calling or a promise for late-night Netflix’s latest season of Black Mirror date, to drag myself from the warmth of the bed. Maybe if I eat something nice today, I thought to myself.

Half asleep, I flipped through my Asian food mental Rolodex. There were Vietnamese meatballs pho below our office building, minced meat kebab rice on UberEats, and dumplings from across the road to Nagoya style Tebasaki Chicken in well… Nagoya before it landed on a warm bowl of Lanzhou Noodle.

Lanzhou Noodle

Originated from Lanzhou, China, the noodle has been one of the quintessential icons of Chinese food culture and world noodle markets. So much so that the taste for it has spread to the rest of the world, including Australia.

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Not only that, recently their noodle committee called the Lanzhou Beef Noodle Association has been planning to apply for the noodles’ entry to the National Intangible Cultural Heritage. It shows how far the noodle is loved and celebrated.

Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar

Opened only last winter Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar is famous for its best tasting traditional hand-pulled noodles around Melbourne. But the main pull for me is their rich and flavorful soup broth. The thin noodle, soaked in the hot and spicy soup, topped with slow-cooked beef belly in thin slices and white radish has been my go-to combination. It’s my version of winter comfort food in Melbourne. I guess I love it because it feels like the fast-food version of Chinese hot pot, my ultimate choice for winter food.

Conveniently located near the train station, I have stopped at the Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar for a quick and delicious fix plenty of times since last winter, though it had become less frequent as the temperature increased. I have a feeling I will be their regular patron again, successfully collecting 9 stamps to get a bowl of free noodles within the season.

Because in winter we eat Lanzhou noodles.

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