[1] The earliest description of making lamian noodles with the pulling technique is found in the Songshi Yangsheng Bu (宋氏養生部), a dietary manual written in 1504 by Song Xu (宋詡), an agriculturalist and gastronomer of the Ming dynasty.

[1] The hand-making process involves taking a lump of dough and repeatedly stretching it to produce many strands of thin, long noodle.

Some pullers regularly slam the noodle against their prep boards to ensure even stretching and uniform thickness.

In the Beijing style of preparation, the dough is twisted, stretched delicately by waving the arms and body, untwisted, looped to double the strands and then repeated.

Dishes using lamian are usually served in a beef-flavored soup called tangmian (Chinese: 湯麵; pinyin: Tāngmiàn, literally 'soup noodles').

However, they are sometimes stir-fried and served with a sauce as a dish called chaomian (Chinese: 炒麵; pinyin: Chǎomiàn, literally 'fried noodles').

Small restaurants serving Lanzhou-style lamian are very common throughout Western China where they have formed a staple diet for centuries, as well as Eastern Chinese cities.

They tend to serve a variety of low cost meals, with a choice of lamian, knife-cut noodles and perhaps Xi'an-style paomo (steamed bread dipped in soup).

Lamian can also be served cold with salad ingredients such as shredded cucumber and tomato to make a refreshing summer dish.