Lamian
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Lamian (Simplified Chinese: 拉面; Traditional Chinese: 拉麵; pinyin: lāmiàn) is a Chinese dish of hand-made noodles, usually served in a beef or mutton-flavored soup (湯麵 tāngmiàn), but sometimes stir-fried (炒麵 chǎomiàn) and served with a tomato-based sauce. Literally, 拉 (lā) means to pull or stretch, while 麵 (miàn) means noodle. The hand-making process involves taking a lump of dough and repeatedly stretching it to produce a single very long noodle.
Small restaurants serving Lanzhou-style lamian are very common in eastern Chinese cities. They tend to serve a variety of cheap meals, with a choice of lamian, 'daoxiaomian' (刀削麵, knife-sliced noodles) and perhaps Xi'an-style 'paomo' (泡饃, steamed bread). Noodles may be served with beef or mutton, either in soup or stir-fried. The majority of these lamian restaurants are owned by Hui ethnicity families from Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang[citation needed], and serve only halal food (thus no pork dishes).
The Japanese term ramen uses the same characters for its kanji form, and the original meaning was approximately the same as the Chinese. However, in English, the term 'ramen' usually refers to store-bought dried instant noodles, while 'lamian' refers to the freshly-made hand-stretched noodles.
In Central Asia the dish has thicker noodles and is significantly spicier, and is known as laghman.
