Xuzhou Spicy Soup

Xuzhou spicy soup is built on a long-simmered broth of pork and chicken bones, with wheat gluten, shredded kelp, tofu-skin shreds and egg flowers, well dosed with white pepper so the bowl is thick and sharp enough to bring on a sweat, a classic Xuzhou morning bowl.

Spicy soup is one of the two great Xuzhou breakfasts, ranked with sha soup and long rooted in the city's lanes; the old house Lianglaifeng is known for spicy soup, beef pot-stickers and fried dough, carrying the morning street-life of Xuzhou.

Made fresh at dawn and ladled hot, dressed with black vinegar and chilli oil, it is eaten with eight-strand youtiao, beef pot-stickers or flatbread wrapped around fried dough, peppery and warming, the most everyday of Xuzhou breakfasts.

The white-pepper heat, the thick body that clings to the bowl, and its place beside sha soup as one of the two great Xuzhou breakfasts are the marks of Xuzhou spicy soup.