Changsha: Slapping Noodles Within 30 Minutes and a Food Expo Where Everything Was New

The trip from Shanghai to Changsha started with a pulse spike. At the hotel reception my passport had somehow been swapped with my friend Vertti's. I only noticed at the railway station when I was digging it out for the security check. The guy in the photo looked a bit different. And Vertti was flying to Japan that same day.

Vertti came to the station in what must have been the fastest taxi in Shanghai. We swapped passports and I jumped on the train to Changsha. It stood there maybe twenty more seconds before it left. Last minute.

I was starving. You could buy food on the train. Not top quality but the hunger went away. Rice, pork, a bit of chicken, vegetables and a good amount of garlic. My tips for food on the train are in Taking the Bullet Train in China.

Changsha is the capital of Hunan province. Hunan is known for its food.

Zoey, my local guide, picked me up at the station. We dropped my bags at the hotel and maybe half an hour later I was in a noodle place.

First we ate local food. Noodles, meats, sausage. And stinky tofu (臭豆腐) for the first time in my life. With the sauce that comes with it, it was really good. The smell fools you a bit. It doesn't taste the way it smells. I really recommend it.

There were also shiny round sweets in a sauce. A bit like mochi, the soft dessert you find in the freezer at the shop. Only warm or room temperature. Another first for me. Later I found out they are called 糖油粑粑 (tang you ba ba), a classic Changsha snack.

Then they let me into the kitchen. We slapped the dough on the table and it made this lovely slapping sound.

I also tasted a kind of "Chinese burger". Thin crispy dough with pork inside. Crazy good. I could come up with many ways to tweak it but that pork was so juicy.

My noodle bowl had my favourite green beans and pak choi. Chicken, egg, red meat, bean sprouts, chili and the noodles we had slapped ourselves.

We had a competition on who could stretch theirs the longest. One noodle is one single piece. It can be several metres long. I asked as a joke if it's bad to bite it in half or if you should slurp the whole thing at once without chewing. Apparently impossible. Joke joke.

They welcomed me so warmly. My chef background was appreciated and apparently I did pretty well, even though I've always cooked with a totally different method.

Then there was tofu and pitch-black eggs that had apparently been stored somewhere for a couple of years. I don't remember what they're called. Most likely century eggs (皮蛋). A very interesting taste. Worth trying at least once in your life.

To drink we had something low in alcohol and a bit cloudy. It was really good. It was served cool and we raised our glasses. Afterwards I found the bottle in my photos. 皇瑰 from Xi'an. A choujiu (稠酒), which is a cloudy and mild rice wine.

Straight into the food culture of Hunan, into the kitchen and learning from a master how food is made the local way.

In September Changsha hosted a big food expo that went on for several days. We went. It was the 11th China International Food & Catering Expo, held 18 to 20 September 2026 at the Changsha International Convention and Exhibition Center. The expo has been held since 2016. This year it expected more than 200,000 visitors on 100,000 square metres.

I've been to food events and food fairs many times in different countries. I've got to know food, products and ingredients all over. Here everything was new to me.

It was crazy cool to see cultural dishes, traditional home cooking and festive food. Every protein from the sea and land you can find. I talked with people about food. So many things here aren't familiar to me back home in Nordics.

I got to know tea. Different tea makers and aromas. I talked with a few producers and found fun new nuances in tea itself. I'm used to tea bags from backpacking around the world. This felt really special. In Asia tea is a whole different culture. Learning about green and black tea and different herbs right there at the expo was super cool.

The bone broths were fascinating too. Different amounts of bone and different cooking times. Everyone had their own in these pots and urns. You could taste them and see the differences in texture. Really hands-on.

People tasted a lot. Fresh food, noodles, tofu and ingredients prepared in different ways. I queued at a few stands myself. Rice, oils, everything from everyday groceries to premium. Wines too.

Traditional dishes were laid out on display. Easily hundreds of them. I wanted to taste everything, take my own chopsticks and throw it all in my mouth. Probably not the right etiquette.

The seafood amazed me. I love the sea and what you find there. Still here were fish and crab species I had never seen. How they were combined and presented was really inspiring.

In China all the dishware, cups, plates and natural materials are used so differently. In presentation, in the kitchen and with tea. Very different from where I come from.

What surprised me was how widely there was everything from all around the world. And so many excellent examples of things I didn't know about Chinese food culture or about Hunan food at all.

Chinese smoked pork totally won me over. Smoking meat is an old tradition in Hunan. Xiangxi smoked bacon for example is salted, dried and smoked. According to the official tourism website of Hunan it keeps for two to three years.

It was super cool to see everything a food expo like this has.

There were pigs at the expo and of course I went to scratch them. The locals found this really interesting. Probably 20 people were filming me.

For me it was just normal. I grew up on a farm. I take care of animals and I love them.

This is also part of how I think about food. I really value ingredients. I focus on them in my own kitchen too. Whenever I eat somewhere a bit nicer I want to ask where each ingredient comes from.

At the expo you could ask all of this. Production methods and everything else were clearly explained and you could ask the people at the stands about anything. And you could really taste the quality of the ingredients even in the product samples. Different ducks and so much more. I won't even start listing it all. There was just so much.

I would have wanted to taste even more. But then I wouldn't have been able to move for the rest of the day and my belt would have run out of holes.

The importance of ingredients shows very strongly globally. You can see a big development. Everything is more transparent, more professional and clearer than before.

That is something you can use in marketing too. Whether we talk about products, services, events, restaurants or whatever.

The standard is rising globally and I think that is a really great thing. When it comes to animal products I believe it also affects animal welfare. At least I really hope so.

I'd rather have happiness on the plate than possible suffering.

China showed me this in a very concrete way. So next time you eat out, ask where the ingredients come from. I always do.

Changsha left a really good feeling and I would definitely go back. This was just the start of Hunan. More from Changsha: city days, Yuelu Academy, business and AI television and everything I ate.

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Samuli Makkonen, Pleasure Advisor
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