The Receipt

1x Stewed Pork Hand-Ripped Noodles $9.37

Total (with tax) $10.20

The Review

When I started this column, I knew that cheap eats could be had pretty much anywhere in New York City thanks to everyone’s friends, McDonald and Wendy. I also knew that writing a cheap eats column about multinational fast food chains could be, in a word, boring and in a few more words, uninspired, lazy, pointless and ridiculous. So, I made it a rule that I would not write about chain restaurants when I set out to find cheap eats in New York. I quickly came to question, however, what constitutes a chain restaurant.

Xi’an Famous Foods, for example, almost certainly fits the bill, with 15 locations decorating the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. However, there’s a definite distinction between an authentic Western Chinese restaurant chain that was started in 2005 and began as a 200 square foot basement stall in a Flushing, Queens shopping mall and a Taco Bell, right? (I’m going to assume the answer to this question is yes, so here’s my review of Xi’an — don’t expect a Taco Bell review any time soon.)

The chain gets its name from the Chinese city of Xi’an, situated in northwestern China, though still rather far southeast from the coastal cities of Beijing and Shanghai. Xi’an has a cuisine shaped by its former location on the Silk Road, meaning it consists of a unique combination of Chinese and Middle Eastern foods and spices — cumin is especially prevalent. In the 15 years since its inception, Xi’an has become one of the most well-known Chinese spots in New York City, defined by ChefsFeed as “an NYC-based restaurant empire” and, as mentioned, now has 15 locations throughout the city.

Each location has a relatively similar menu, though there are some variations that might be worth looking at before going. The menu at the restaurant is also not too descriptive, so it might be worth it to check it out online before going regardless. As for the menu itself, it consists mostly of the restaurant’s signature, hand-ripped noodles, which are uniquely wide and belt-like. They can be ordered with a variety of meats (or none) and spices — with lamb and pork making the most appearances on the menu — and can be had in soup or on a plate in a sort of stew. There are also four levels of heat that most dishes can be ordered with, ranging from No Spice to Extra Spicy.

There are “burgers” which consist of either lamb or pork on a flatbread bun, and a few other options, including soups and dumplings.

After receiving and eating my food — I ordered the stewed pork noodles — I came to a new appreciation for dining with friends. There’s something special about sharing a delicious meal with people you appreciate. Food brings people together in a way not many other things can. Dining with small-stomached friends, however, is a joy that far surpasses just eating with friends in general. Hearing the question, “Do you want the rest of my food?” is one of life’s greatest pleasures, possibly second only to the subsequent eating of the food in question.

It was via this question that I tried Xi’an’s spicy cumin lamb hand-ripped noodles, and without knocking the pork noodles that I ordered, I strongly recommend using this dish as a starting point for your foray into Xi’an. The blend of spices, along with the lamb and noodles, creates one of the most uniquely delicious meals I’ve eaten in New York. After eating them, it made perfect sense to me why Xi’an’s website has, in large letters, the statement, “NO, WE DO NOT FRANCHISE” front and center on its home page. If I had any business acumen whatsoever, opening my own location to make and sell those noodles would’ve been my second thought, the first being, “why have I not had this before?”

To make a long story short, Xi’an Famous Foods is no Taco Bell, and wouldn’t be even if it had thousands of locations.