Mention Liuzhou and most people immediately think of luosifen — and it deserves the attention (see our full luosifen guide). But spend a couple of days in the city and you’ll notice locals eating a lot more than rice noodle soup: a duck-foot hot pot, a full Guangxi-style feast built around fish and clams, and street-corner sweet soups all show up just as often on the table. Here’s what that looked like across two real meals.
Liuzhou’s other national dish: the duck-foot hot pot
At Liu Yuan Yuan (柳元元), the dish to order is a luosi duck-foot pot (螺蛳鸭脚煲) — slow-braised duck feet simmered tableside in a spicy, sour broth built on the same fermented bamboo shoot base as a bowl of luosifen. Rice noodles go straight into the pot toward the end of the meal, and because they finish cooking in the simmering broth rather than being boiled separately, they come out noticeably softer and more tender than a standard bowl of luosifen — a good pick if you found the regular version a bit too firm.
A proper Guangxi feast at Guixiaochu (桂小厨)
One sit-down meal at Guixiaochu (桂小厨) covered four dishes that each show a different side of Guangxi home-style cooking, starting with the Laoyou fish pictured above — a whole fish braised in the classic “old friend” style with pickled bamboo shoot, tomato and chili, more sour-and-savory than spicy.
This was one real meal rather than a comprehensive menu review, so treat it as a sample of what a proper Guangxi spread looks like rather than a definitive “best dishes” list for the restaurant.
Street-corner sweet soups
Dessert in Liuzhou often means tong sui — sweet soups sold from small street stalls. The set pictured below included what looked like a mung bean or barley-based soup, a coconut milk dessert with jelly cubes, and a separate bowl of jelly cubes in syrup. We couldn’t confirm the exact names of each from the photo alone, so we’d rather say that plainly than guess — but it’s a good example of Liuzhou’s dessert culture beyond the noodle soup the city is famous for.
A lighter note to end on
Eating your way through Liuzhou is close to a full-contact sport, and a packet of digestive tablets making an appearance partway through the trip is a fairly honest summary of what a serious food day here looks like.
If you haven’t already, don’t skip the bowl that put this city on the map — see our full guide to Liuzhou luosifen.
