As the saying goes, "Food is the first priority for good people" and "the soil and water support the people." As a native of Lanzhou, Gansu, I have many food friends in Lanzhou, such as beef noodles, sauerkraut noodles, glutinous rice noodles, etc. Mutton steamed buns, haggis, roasted lamb, hand-caught mutton, water steak, sweet embryos, gray beans, hot winter fruits and many more. Let me introduce to you some very representative Lanzhou specialties.

Noodles

Speaking of Lanzhou noodles, there may be few people in the country who don’t know about this Lanzhou specialty food. Yes, it is “Lanzhou Ramen”. In fact, our locals don’t call it that at all. We all call it beef noodles or beef noodles. Beef noodles pay attention to "one clear (clear soup), two white (white radish), three red (red chili oil), four green (green coriander and garlic sprouts), and five yellow (yellow noodles)". In the past, beef noodles were usually made with fenugreek water when kneading the noodles, but this is rarely used now because there are many harmful substances in the fenugreek made by oneself, represented by arsenic. Nowadays, improved ramen agents are used. A delicious beef noodle is not mainly about soup and chili oil. The broth is usually made from beef bones and beef (some noodle restaurants also add whole chicken to make it fresh), and dozens of seasonings are added. There are also more than a dozen chili oil. This kind of seasoning is made by mixing two or more kinds of chili noodles and frying them. Each noodle restaurant has a different ratio of soup and chili oil seasoning. It is the so-called thousand halls and thousand flavors.

Meat

Speaking of meat, we have to mention Lanzhou’s hand-caught mutton. Hand-caught mutton is a traditional food loved by the Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui, Kazakh, Uyghur and other ethnic groups in northwest my country. Hand-caught mutton is said to have a history of nearly a thousand years. It was originally named after being eaten with hands. There are three ways to eat it, namely eating it hot (slicing it and then steaming it in a cage and dipping it hot in Sanhe oil), eating it cold (slicing it and then dipping it in refined salt), and eating it fried (fry it hot in a pan and eat it while frying). The characteristic is that the meat is delicious, not greasy or tangy, and has both color and aroma.

Sweets

There are many sweets in Lanzhou, such as gray beans, hot winter fruits, twenty cakes, etc., but my favorite is sweet cakes, which are a specialty of the northwest region. One of the snacks, the main ingredients are oats, distiller's yeast, etc., and it is a festival food for Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. When eating, mix it with cold boiled water and sugar. It tastes sweet and sour and has the effect of relieving summer heat. Sweet embryo is a snack made from oats. There is a saying among the masses: "Sweet fermented grains are so sweet that old people and children can swallow their saliva. One or two bowls can whet your appetite, and three or four bowls can make a meal."

There are many kinds of delicacies in Lanzhou, too numerous to mention. You are welcome to come and taste it in person when you have time. We Lanzhou people warmly welcome you.