Shanxi Noodles and Aged Vinegar

Rice does not grow well on the loess plateau and wheat, millet and oats do, so Shanxi turned grain into shapes instead. Dao xiao mian is the emblem: a block of stiff dough held on the forearm and shaved with a curved blade straight into boiling water, each strip thick at the centre and thin at the edge, so it holds sauce without going soft. Then cat's ear pasta pinched from small pieces, oat tubes steamed upright in a basket like a honeycomb, noodles pressed through a perforated plate, and dozens more. Beside them stands the other Shanxi product: aged vinegar, fermented and matured in open jars through summer heat and winter frost until it is dark and almost sweet.

What you actually see

• Knife-shaved noodles - dough sliced off a block into the pot, thick-centred and chewy.
• Cat's ear pasta - small pieces thumbed into curls and tossed with vegetables and vinegar.
• Oat kaolaolao - rolled oat tubes steamed standing up in a basket.
• Aged vinegar - dark, matured in open jars, on the table in every noodle house.

When to go

Any season, though Shanxi winters are cold and dusty and summers hot. Noodle houses serve from mid-morning through the evening with a lull in the afternoon. Taiyuan and Pingyao both have working noodle streets. Taste the vinegar before buying a bottle, since the cheap souvenir versions are diluted and sweetened.

Honest expectations

Compared with the south this is plain, starchy, beige food, and vegetables are often an afterthought on the plate. The knife-shaving displays on tourist streets, sometimes performed in costume, are showmanship rather than cooking. Prices and quality along Pingyao's main lanes are aimed squarely at visitors, so walk two streets out.

Nearby

Pingyao's walled town and the old merchant courtyard houses of the region are close by.