Cheap and tasty yangchunmian, noodles without toppings, have reemerged in a local restaurant.

Yangchunmian, also known as plain noodles, were very popular in the old days but have become obsolete in today’s affluent society. The profit margin 　is so narrow that many noodle restaurants stopped serving plain noodles many years ago.

Wang Cheng, 61, a famous chef in Suzhou’s Shunrenxing Noodle Restaurant, began 　to prepare plain noodles at 3am last Monday. People were able to eat the noodles three hours later. For many senior patrons, the snow white, delightful, soft and 　creamy noodles brought back the taste of childhood.

The plain noodles are sold for 3 yuan (50 cents) per bowl, but are quite complicated to prepare. The ingredients for the soup must be carefully chosen. 　The recipe includes pork bones, river snails, ham, green onion slices and ginger. The soup must be boiled over a low heat for a long time.

Noodles must be well-pre-pared for immediate 　con-sumption. The chef 　chooses noodles that are unbelievably only 0.8mm wide. Once the noodles are cooked and trans-ferred to the bowl of soup, aromatic scallion oil is sprin-kled on top.

Chef Wang Cheng started up the noodle Restaurant in April. Apart from 　other traditional snacks, the restaurant sells 200 bowls of plain noodles 　every day. Although selling plain noodles is not very profitable, Wang Cheng 　said it is still possible to make up for the low profit margin if they rely on the quantity of sales.