Cowley Flavors is a photojournalistic column documenting food and life stories from ethnic restaurants and grocery shops located on Cowley Road, updated weekly.
I first heard about Real Kungfu Noodle from a friend’s casual food recommendation when I was craving Chinese: “Have you tried that noodle place in Cowley?” I froze in excitement. Is it what I’m thinking – a Chinese restaurant that only sells noodles?
It turned out to be exactly what I expected: authentic Lanzhou Noodles from the sturdy arms and adroit hands of a Northwestern chef. It is a traditional flavor that transcends space and time. Interestingly, Northwestern China is the birthplace of noodle culture, made official by the discovery of a 4,000-year-old bowl of millet noodles, the “earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found”. From the 19th to 20th century, during the Qing dynasty, groups of Chinese Muslims from the Northwest revolutionized the noodle recipe, which soon firmly established the name of Lanzhou Ramen in the gastronomic world. Now a bowl of smooth white noodles, bathed in clear and fragrant beef soup, garnished with thinly sliced radish, fresh coriander and glossy red chili oil, is to be found in every single city in China, and gradually appearing in global metropolises.
Now in Oxford too!
[Real Kungfu Noodle, Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Lanzhou beef soup noodles, Image by Shixin Zhao]
Cao /:tsao/, a Gansu native, moved from China to the UK in 2011 when he acquired a work visa destined for Oxford city. After working in the food and drink industry for a while, he managed to bring his family over. They opened their own business on Cowley at the end of 2023 and Cao started his journey as a full-time chef. When the children go to school, his wife, originally from Henan province, takes care of orders and service at the restaurant.
They chose Cowley because of its proximity to other Chinese businesses and the volume of Chinese customers, although those who come for their noodles are from everywhere. One challenge of the location in Cowley is the difficulty reaching the tourist and working population in the city center due to the distance. However, they are content with the business: despite little publicity, people always come back for the noodles, and their word-of-mouth reputation proved to be quite a success. Some people drive for an hour just to come for a bowl of noodles.
[Lanzhou Ramen Sign, Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Shop decorations, Image by Shixin Zhao]
At the beginning the restaurant sold Japanese cuisine, but Cao decided to experiment with an idea that had been on his mind for some time: reviving the Lanzhou noodle business he once handled back home. Lanzhou is the capital city of his home province, Gansu, and Lanzhou noodles are the irreplaceable go-to for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for everyone in the region. In May 2024, Cao launched a new menu which he hoped would introduce his century-old cultural heritage to the Oxford public.
[Menu, Image by Shixin Zhao]
To the delight of the Cao family, the noodles quickly won the hearts of many. Cao carefully adjusted the menu to the liking of his customers, but the main noodle dishes remain 100% loyal to their original taste. While the vegetables, beef, and flour are locally sourced, every five to six months Cao needs to restock the spices in his kitchen which are all imported from back home to ensure the high quality and authenticity of the soup base. All the dishware was also purchased in China, including the iconic potteries for vinegar and chili oil.
[Chinese blue & white porcelain jars, Image by Shixin Zhao]
Cao says that people love the noodles because they’re handmade. Every morning, Cao arrives early and starts preparing in the kitchen at 10 a.m. The dough must be prepared and preserved in a specific range of temperature, and repeatedly pounded, kneaded, stretched, and beaten into long strips with a special technique to ensure its elasticity and “smooth” the disordered protein molecules inside the dough. By 12 p.m., the soup, the dough, and other side dishes should be ready. When customers make the order, Cao then stretches the noodles in a few seconds—a seemingly easy but highly challenging task not at all for beginners. Noodles stretch in a repeated process of locking, pulling, folding, twisting, and more pulling, which has to be carried out with precision, speed, and strength. Noodles in the hands of an experienced chef come out long, soft, flexible, and perfectly even in thickness, but can easily break for someone without proper training and techniques. The muscular forearms and broad shoulders of Cao speak for themselves.
[LED screen inside the shop with the Halal sign, Image by Shixin Zhao]
When asked about their relationship with the University, the couple laughed while shaking their heads: “We don’t know much, and we have never visited because we are always too busy in the restaurant, but there are many students who frequent our place.” One and a half years into the business, Cao and his wife now recognize the faces of most customers who step into the restaurant, and know some of them very well. Hungry Oxford students find great comfort in the noodles: be it soup noodles or fried noodles, the dishes are incredibly affordable, fulfilling, appealing, and homey, which makes Real Kungfu Noodle the can’t-miss place to go to for a quick weekday dinner and a must-have retreat during the cold and dark Oxford winter.
[Serving the beef soup noodles, Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Cao’s wife preparing a bowl of braised beef noodle, Image by Shixin Zhao]
And, for me personally-a Northwestern-born and a Halal-food consumer- this is a haven for my homesick moments to camouflage my tears in the thick and warm noodle steam.