Xibu Niuda is an upmarket — "upmarket" — Lanzhou la mian shop in the Cloud 9 mall, started by a Lanzhou native who was looking for more authenticity than the ubiquitous mom-and-pop shops around town (often run by families from Qinghai). To that end, Xibu Niuda is one of the few shops that offers a choice of thickness of noodles, from the impossibly thin to thick-as-a-belt, nine choices in all. Though there was just one shop as of late 2019, it seems poised to become a mall-bound chain, if Shanghai accepts it.