🍽️ Lanzhou Liangpi

Lanzhou cold skin with chili-garlic water.

Lanzhou Liangpi is a traditional summer cool-noodle snack of Lanzhou, Gansu, part of the Northwest wheat-skin family. High-gluten flour is washed to separate gluten; the starchy batter is steamed into thin, resilient sheets, cut into wide strips and dressed with sesame paste, chili oil, garlic water, black vinegar and mustard, served with a chunk of the washed gluten. Chewy, slippery and tangy, spicy, sour and aromatic, with mustard clearing the sinuses, it is a refreshing summer bowl. Washing the gluten and balancing the dressings are the craft. Lanzhou locals eat it in summer alongside a bowl of beef noodles or as a standalone fast meal. Alongside beef noodles, it is one of the city's calling cards and the Yellow River capital's most cooling street food.