Chinese · Hong Kong
Beef Offal Noodle Soup — Hong Kong Style (牛雜湯麵)
Hong Kong's beloved street food of mixed beef offal (stomach, tendon, intestine, lung, heart) slow-simmered in a spiced curry-style broth with daikon, then served over egg noodles or alone as a soup. The offal-daikon broth is intensely savoury from hours of cooking — each cut contributing different collagen and protein compounds. This is a culturally significant Hong Kong street food associated with night markets and working-class culture.
‹Swipe for the next dish›
Seven in town · four not yet within reach.
How the 11 are reached
- In town
- 7 · beef honeycomb tripe (stomach), beef heart, star anise, sand ginger (sha jiang), fresh curry leaves, soy sauce, fresh Hong Kong egg noodles
- Not yet within reach
- 4 · beef tendon, beef intestine, beef lung, dried tangerine peel
I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
The offal
300 g
beef honeycomb tripe (stomach)
trimmed of excess fat
300 g
beef tendon
cut into 5 cm lengths
Not yet within reach of Port Coquitlam · each reach is counted
200 g
beef intestine
turned inside out, scrubbed clean, cut into 5 cm lengths
Not yet within reach of Port Coquitlam · each reach is counted
200 g
beef lung
squeezed repeatedly under running water until water runs clear
Not yet within reach of Port Coquitlam · each reach is counted
200 g
beef heart
trimmed of valves and sinew, cut into thick slices
The broth
3 litres
cold water
Your own market
4
star anise
10 g
10 g
dried tangerine peel
soaked in cold water 10 minutes, drained
Not yet within reach of Port Coquitlam · each reach is counted
8
fresh curry leaves
Origin · IndiaIn town · Atkinson's of Vancouver · Vancouver →
60 ml
500 g
daikon radish
peeled, cut into 4 cm rounds
Your own market
To serve
400 g
Within reach counts in town, delivered, shipped and the nearest city. A staple counts once it has a local seller. Charted from each shop's own pages; not yet vouched by a cook who shops here.
The larder of Port Coquitlam →Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.
II
The Method
1
Clean each offal piece thoroughly and separately: scrub the intestine inside and out under cold running water, squeeze the lung repeatedly until no blood remains, and trim the tripe, heart, and tendon. Place each type in its own pot of cold water, bring to the boil separately, blanch for 3 minutes, then drain and rinse under cold water — each type blanches separately so that any strong odour released by one piece does not transfer to the others. The blanching water must be discarded; a clean smell after blanching signals the offal is ready to proceed.
2
Place the blanched tendon and tripe into a large pot with 3 litres of cold water, then add the star anise, sand ginger, dried tangerine peel, curry leaves, and soy sauce. Start over high heat, then reduce to a steady low simmer and cook partially covered for 2 hours — beginning in cold water rather than boiling draws out the clouding impurities gradually, giving the broth clarity and a cleaner taste. The broth will deepen to a dark amber; the tendon, when pressed, should still offer resistance at this stage.
3
Add the blanched intestine, lung, and heart to the pot and continue to simmer for a further 1 hour — these pieces go in later because their texture collapses quickly, and adding them now keeps them tender without turning them grainy and dry. This is where the dish lives or dies: the tendon must become completely gelatinous, yielding to the slightest pressure with no rubbery resistance, and the broth must be intensely savoury and thick, never thin. Taste the broth; if it lacks depth, remove the lid and reduce at a slightly higher simmer for 20 minutes before proceeding.
4
Add the daikon rounds to the pot and simmer uncovered for a final 1 hour — left uncovered, the broth concentrates as steam escapes, so the daikon absorbs a deeper, more intensely spiced liquor than it would in a sealed pot. The daikon is ready when a chopstick passes through each piece without resistance and the rounds have taken on the deep colour of the broth, signalling full absorption of the offal-spice liquor.
5
Cook the fresh egg noodles in a separate pot of rapidly boiling unsalted water for 1–2 minutes until just tender, then drain — a separate pot keeps the noodles from muddying the broth with starch. Divide the noodles among warmed bowls, ladle portions of mixed offal and daikon over the noodles, then pour the broth over generously; the surface should carry a visible sheen of collagen.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Offal sourced from a single grass-fed animal, butchered to order; broth built over multiple days in the manner of specialist Hong Kong cow offal shops, where the pot is never fully emptied.
02
Estate — Fresh (not frozen) offal from a known butcher; dried tangerine peel aged at least one year; whole dried sand ginger and fresh curry leaves sourced from a Chinese or South Asian grocer.
03
Market — Mixed offal from a reliable market butcher, frozen tendon thawed overnight in the refrigerator; standard dried spices from a Chinese supermarket; fresh daikon selected for firmness.
04
House — Pre-cleaned packaged tripe and tendon; dried curry leaves substituted for fresh; daikon added without colour differentiation — an adequate working version that lacks the accumulated depth of a specialist pot.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Smell. After blanching, each offal type should smell clean and neutral — any persistent barnyard odour signals insufficient cleaning and the piece must be scrubbed and blanched again.
◇Sight. After two hours, the broth turns dark amber and the surface carries a light collagen sheen — pale, thin broth at this stage indicates insufficient offal or too high a heat driving off flavour.
◇Touch. The tendon yields completely to finger pressure with no rubbery resistance — this is the definitive test of sufficient cooking time, at least 3 hours total in the broth.
◇Sight. The daikon rounds absorb the broth colour fully, turning from white to deep ochre — pallid rounds indicate the final hour was too short or the heat too low.
◇Where it lives or dies. The tendon must be completely gelatinous and the broth must be intensely savoury and thick with collagen — a thin or under-cooked pot cannot be recovered at the table.
Pillar V
Cross-cuisine parallels are part of membership.
The dishes this one teaches you, across the cuisines — on every recipe.
Enter · from $49 a year
VI
What to Pour
A lightly chilled Cantonese chrysanthemum tea or weak pu-erh cuts through the richness of the offal broth without competing with the spice base; for those who take alcohol with street food, a cold, low-bitterness lager in the style of Hong Kong draught serves the same function.
The whole pairingPillar VII
Origin and lineage are part of membership.
Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
Enter · from $49 a year
The working kitchen
Sourced through Provenance
The hands behind the plate.
Angel Seafoods · Vancouver
Vancouver · beef honeycomb tripe (stomach), beef heart
Bosa Foods · Vancouver
Vancouver · star anise, sand ginger (sha jiang), fresh Hong Kong egg noodles
T Amano Trading · Vancouver
Vancouver · soy sauce
Atkinson's of Vancouver · Vancouver
Vancouver, BC (1501 West 6th Ave) · fresh curry leaves