[Photo provided to China Daily]

A Yan's Lamb Noodle

Xu Xiaoyan sounds like a lazy cook when he explains why he opened a mutton noodle shop in Wuzhen a decade ago. "It's easy," the 36-year-old says. "I only need to prepare one sauce for the different mutton cuts." But he's arguably clever rather than slothful. His restaurant only serves meat from a unique, local breed of grass-fed sheep, named after Taihu Lake in neighboring Jiangsu province. He uses nearly 90 percent of this sheep variety, including stomachs, kidneys, penises and testicles.

The store processes 15 sheep a day and serves over 1,000 bowls of noodles and mutton in gravy.