I was on a day trip to Suzhou and had some time to spare before I get on the HSR back to Shanghai (which is 30-45 min away). Time to get a Suzhou-style noodle fix at the train station.
In March 1938, Zhu Chunhe 朱春鶴, the founder of Zhu Hongxing established a small shop which covered less than 30 sqm selling noodles and wontons on Suzhou’s Wolong Street (today’s Renmin Road) after taking over his father’s noodle store. Together with the chef, Lu Fusheng, they came up with 20-30 types of toppings to the noodles. Through good taste and quality ingredient, the store was very popular among the customers that came to try his Suzhou-style noodles.
I usually order two toppings to go with my noodles, and one of them is always a heavy sauce one like sautéed eels. They were out of eels so I changed the order to pig kidney. This is usually a gamble, as badly cleansed pig kidney does taste like the lavatory. Thankfully, this one wasn’t bad at all. The kidney was sautéed a la minute, and the doneness was perfect. The sauce was a bit watery though.
This is the other classic topping, and the main criteria is white as snow shrimps. These days, the shrimps are farmed, so it will always be a little pinkish when cooked. But the quality of shrimps is now guaranteed with industrial scale aquaculture. The shrimps were crunchy and well seasoned.
The noodle in Zhu Hongxing is different from others, it is called “28 Ya Thin Noodle” 二十八呀细面. It also requires the chef to drain the noodle quickly and softly so as to make sure it is tasteful. According to the requirement of customers, the restaurant offers different variations in cooking the noodle – hard, soft, dry mixed, cook with soup – and also adjust the taste and the amount of noodles to cater to customers’ need.
The taste of soup is a priority of Suzhou noodle. Thus Zhu Hongxing uses whole chicken, pork trotters, and pig bones pig and eel to boil the soup stock. Multiple way to enjoy the noodles – some like to pour everything on top of the noodles; some like to eat them separately. I like to start with individual items, and then finish it up with everything in a bowl.
There are many good Suzhou-style noodles around, Zhu Hongxing being one of them. So do try it when you are in Suzhou. Multiple locations in the city.
Visited Dec 2025
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