Laoyou Noodles (Old Friends Rice Noodle)

Rice noodles are served in a broth built from fermented bamboo shoots, black bean paste, tomato, garlic, chili and pork or beef, yielding an orange-red, pungently sour-spicy soup that invigorates the appetite—the first choice for breakfast among Nanning locals.

The most popular origin story is that a regular customer at a Nanning noodle shop in the Republican era always ordered a sour-spicy noodle dish; the grateful owner named it after him as 'old friend,' and through decades of evolution it developed into the distinctive Nanning style known today.

Best eaten piping hot; the layered sour-spicy flavors of fermented bamboo, black bean paste and tomato-chili broth warm the body in winter and induce a refreshing sweat in summer—a year-round comfort food.

Old Friends noodle is Nanning's defining local food identity, found on every street corner; a must-eat for any visitor to the city.