Dai Rice Noodles

Dai rice noodles are a common Xishuangbanna style of eating rice vermicelli, the fine slick strands dressed in a sour-hot minced-meat sauce and scattered with mint, coriander and crushed peanut, tart, hot and refreshing.

Dai rice noodles grow from the rice-based food tradition of Xishuangbanna's Dai, who build meals on rice, season boldly sour and hot, and fold tropical herbs into the noodle topping, shaping a street-breakfast style all their own.

Served either in hot broth or dry-tossed, sauced to order and eaten steaming in big mouthfuls, the sour-hot sauce clinging to the noodles, often with a glass of Dai iced tea, a familiar Jinghong morning scene.

Its sour-hot meat sauce paired with fresh tropical herbs and its clean, appetite-opening taste are what set Dai rice noodles apart from noodles elsewhere.