My beloved beef noodles is in the news — in the New York Times. And no, there aren't any Lanzhou-style noodle houses in the US, there aren't any decent ones in Beijing either.

For a bit of perspective: 20 years ago a big bowl of noodles cost about 0.30 RMB, which was 10 cents (by the then official exchange rate), or 3 cents (by the then black-market rate & the current semi-free-market rate). Well, twenty years ago an lower-middle class wage is about 100 RMB ($30 or $10) a month, nowadays it is about 500 RMB ($60) — although with the large number of laid-off worker from closed-up heavy industries, there are a lot of poor people in Lanzhou.