Gourmets in China would have been flocked to an improbable destination – a funeral lounge – after a dish of noodles served to his canteen has become viral on social networks.
The dish is at the Erlong funeral home in the southwest province of Guizhou.
The canteen is aimed at customers of the funeral show, but as the word began to spread on its noodles, hordes of guests – some pretending to be mourning – began to present themselves to try food.
Erlong has since announced that it will allow certain public members to eat in its premises, as long as they do not disturb authentic mourning people.
The funeral home offers different types of noodle dishes during breakfast and supper hours, which cost 10 yuan per bowl ($ 1.38; £ 1.09).
The most popular type would be noodles garnished with chopped pork and peanuts.
An Erlong worker told Jiupai News that they “only served customers who come to the funeral show to manage questions”.
But other people have sneaked to obtain a bowl of noodles, said the worker, adding that sometimes the queues in Erlong are so long that the guests sometimes have to wait a few hours to get their food.
“There have been people who pretended to be parents of the deceased, it is difficult to distinguish them when it is crowded, and it is difficult to manage,” he said.
To meet the demand, the funeral show has since decided to offer 50 noodle bowls to public members every day – for free – as long as “they do not affect people’s mourning”, according to the chief of Erlong in a Interview with local media.
While the noodle dish was already popular with the inhabitants, the craze seemed to have accelerated earlier this month when a social media user posted on the dish during the visit of a friend in Guizhou , which is known for its spicy and embittered dishes.
“My friend says that the food of this funeral home is so good,” they wrote earlier this month on Xiaohongshu, also known as Rednote. “The queue for food is longer than the queue to lay flowers for the deceased.”
“I could not eat noodles, because my friend’s mother did not know anyone who had a funeral service.”
Since then, many Chinese social media users have also shared their experiences eating noodles.
On Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, a user shared a photo of the dining room tickets, with what seemed to be a crowd that lines up for food.
“I heard that the noodles here were very good,” they wrote. “I thought of the short lifespan and I got another bowl.”
