In Northwest China, chopped-up baked buns in lamb or beef broth is a perfect combination of staple food and soup. Another example can be the Lanzhou beef noodles. Lanzhou natives start their days with a bowl of beef noodles. With the Yellow River crossing the city, Lanzhou is home to over 1,000 Muslim noodles shops. Everyday, more than 1 million bowls of beef noodles are consumed. People have lavished praise on the tender and hot Lanzhou noodles.

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One hundred years ago, a Hui ethnic person Ma Baozi poured the water, in which the beef and lamb livers were just boiled, into a pot. Noodles made in that pot won popularity immediately. The clarity of the beef broth is the way to check if the beef noodles are authentic. The best beef noodles should acquire the following five features: clear soup, clean white turnips, brilliant red chili oil, green parsley and yellow noodles. When kneading the flour, Ma Baozi creatively added some special water, whose main component is potassium carbonate. That made the flour more elastic. All the procedures are manual.

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To pull the dough into noodles of different thickness, a chef needs to have extraordinary strong arms and also exquisite skills in controlling his strength. The same wheat and the same flour, but different noodles and different wonders are produced.