Noodles & staples · Guangdong
Wonton Noodles
云吞面 — The perfect five-dollar lunch: alkaline noodles in a dried-shrimp broth with prawn wontons so bouncy the Cantonese call them "dancing".
The bowl is built upside down on purpose: wontons at the bottom (so they don’t sit in the noodles and soften), noodles in the middle, then a scalding dashi-like broth of dried shrimp, flounder and pork bone. The noodles are alkaline — springy and yellow — and the wontons should be filled mostly with whole prawns.
Hong Kong made the dish iconic (Mak’s Noodle, Tsim Chai Kee and descendants of the original Wanchai recipe), and Guangzhou claims the ancestor. Order it with a side of "chiu chow" style pickles and you have the complete noodle-shop liturgy.
Where to eat it
- Mak’s Noodle (Hong Kong)
- Guangzhou wonton counters in Yuexiu
- Cha chaan tengs across Hong Kong
Named tables that do it well
- Yu Tang Chun Nuan — Michelin 1 Star
- Jiang by Chef Fei — Michelin 2 Stars
- Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew — Michelin 2 Stars
- Taianmen Guangzhou — Michelin 2 Stars
Routes that eat their way here
More dishes to know
- Chongqing Xiao Mian (重庆小面)
- Claypot Rice (煲仔饭)
- Biangbiang Noodles (biángbiáng面)
- Xinjiang Polo (Hand-Pulled Rice) (抓饭)
- Lanzhou Hand-Pulled Beef Noodles (兰州牛肉面)
- Crossing-the-Bridge Rice Noodles (过桥米线)