Hotel's Yunnan fare a surprise hit

Handmade rice noodles should be served with slices of spring onion and yellow chrysanthemum petals. Photo provided to China Daily

From there we went to noodles, a must here－especially in the still-warm wake of the Lunar New Year. We started with the robust and savory rice noodle in a meaty broth, but next came what may have been the highlight of the night, the local specialty known as "bridge noodles".

The dish arrived deconstructed, a big bowl of clear vegetable broth that had been simmering for hours, surrounded by a flock of bowls including a mass of handmade rice noodles as well as slices of spring onion and brilliant yellow chrysanthemum petals.

The collection was pretty as a picture, but when we leaned in to take pictures we were mildly chided by our server, who was eager to stir in the raw ingredients while the soup was still scalding hot to cook them. We got out of her way in haste, and were rewarded with an even better picture, the finished soup aglow in white, yellow and green. Ladled into soup bowls, the delicate broth unleashed its component favors serially, each mouthful stirring up a new fugue of flavor.