guilin rice noodles (桂林米粉)

Guilin is a tiny city in the Guangxi region of China. Although it's not as well known as larger cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, it's one of China's most popular tourist destinations because of it's beautiful scenery and karst topography.

You can see many underground rivers, caves and unique sets of 'mountains' or hills everywhere you go. Its scenery is known to be as the 'finest under heaven'.

What's also attractive about Guilin is that it's not very westernized, there isn't a lot of construction and development so the air and lakes are generally a lot cleaner than the bigger cities. I did not see a single American fast food chain around the area I was staying at.

You get to see how local farmers catch fish using birds and listen to the indigenous people perform typical, everyday conversation through songs while slowly drifting along a river on a bamboo raft.

reed flute cave:

If you get the chance to, definitely try to watch the Yangshuo light show (more information here) directed by Zhang Yimo (also directed the 2008 Beijing Olympics). The whole performance starts off by lighting up the mountainous backdrop and the entire performance is done on a lake! It's all very breathtaking.

Now, on to the legendary comfort food of China - noodles!

Recently, because of the change in weather, I've been craving for hot and simple comfort foods like bowls of pho, ramen or bun bo hue etc. But sometimes I find that these dishes can feel very heavy and it just reminded me of the famous rice noodles of Guilin.

Guilin rice noodles are just one of the many dishes that have been around since thousands of years ago. These noodles are served everywhere. Let me repeat, everywhere. These bowls of flavour packed noodles are loved by all locals - from construction workers, the elderly to the infants.

You've probably already guessed this but this noodle dish typically contains rice noodles which may either be round or flat. The round one is usually enjoyed with a broth while the flat noodles are usually served without the broth.

Toppings tend to vary from restaurant to restaurant but normally, there are some pickled green beans or bamboo shoots, roasted peanuts, pickled soy beans, green onions and a heap of chilli flakes. Any extra toppings such as beef, horse meat or pork are usually optional. The version without broth, is served with a thick gravy like sauce and similar toppings.

I love this dish mainly because of the chewy texture of the noodles, light broth and simple but satisfying flavours. It doesn't feel heavy at all with the pickled vegetables, beans, nuts and chilli kick. You can find this in most hole-in-the wall restaurants of Guilin, at hotels and at buffets - it's available everywhere at a very low price too.