Luosifen () is a Chinese noodle soup and specialty of Liuzhou, Guangxi. The dish consists of rice noodles boiled and served in a soup. The stock that forms the soup is made by stewing river snails and pork bones for several hours with black cardamom, fennel seed, dried tangerine peel, cassia bark, cloves, white pepper, bay leaf, licorice root, sand ginger, and star anise. It usually does not contain snail meat, but it is instead served with pickled bamboo shoot, pickled green beans, shredded wood ear, fu zhu, fresh green vegetables, peanuts, and chili oil added to the soup. Diners can also add chili, green onions, white vinegar, and green peppers to suit their taste. Pickled bamboo shoots add to the famously strong smell of this dish, which may affect men more than women. The dish is served in small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurants, as well as luxury hotel restaurants. In the late 2010s, many luosifen restaurants have opened in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, as well as in other countries such as the US. Instant noodle versions are also very popular, with 2.5 million packets produced daily in 2019. History The origin of luosifen is not certain, but many believe it originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are three legends that attempt to explain its origin. First legend According to a legend in the 1980s, some starving tourists traveled to Liuzhou in the evening and came across a rice noodle restaurant that was closed; however, the owner still served them. The bone soup, usually the main soup, was out of order, and only snail soup was available. The owner poured cooked rice noodles into the snail soup and served the tourists with vegetables, peanuts, and a bean curd stick side dish. The tourists liked the dish, which led to the owner improving the recipe and production process, slowly shaping the prototype of snail noodle soup. Second legend In the mid 1980s, there was a dry cut noodles grocery store on Jiefang South Road in Liuzhou. After studying in the morning, the shop's clerk decided to boil rice noodles with snails for breakfast. It is speculated that the old woman's snail stall is inside the goldfish lane of Jiefang South Road. The lady thought the noodle soup was delicious, so she started to sell it as the "snail noodle". After years of improvement by local operators, the authentic Liuzhou