Why you must visit Xi'an Famous Foods when you're in NYC

There's a reason Xi'an Famous Foods keeps getting featured in top media outlets, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to Good Morning America—it's that good. Tasting Table agrees wholeheartedly, awarding the Chinese restaurant the silver medal on its list of the best Chinese restaurant chains. Add to that a James Beard Award nomination and a Zagat award, and it's easy to see why the little stand in the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing Queens became a true phenomenon, leading to the opening of more than a dozen branches around the city. In fact, you can take Anthony Bourdain at his word, who ate at Xi'an Famous Foods on an episode of “No Reservations” and declared, “This place is great. I've never eaten anything like it.”

The credit ultimately goes to the Wang family, who grew the restaurant from a small bubble tea shop, but also to Xi'an, China, where they are from. One of China's four great ancient capitals and the starting point of the Silk Road, the city of 13 million people combines many cultures, including a large Muslim population. David Wang couldn't find dishes from his hometown – like spicy lamb with cumin and noodles – as he worked in various Chinese restaurants on the east coast, so he started making them himself. They went down well, outselling the bubble tea and drawing more attention to the food.

Thanks in part to Anthony Bourdain's push, there are now over a dozen branches in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, making Xi'an one of the best noodle restaurants in New York's Chinatown, too. The spotlight continues to be on the noodles — pulled or torn to order — in dishes like Liang Pi “Cold-Skin Noodles,” made with many key ingredients in Chinese cuisine, including chilled noodles, bean sprouts, cucumber, cilantro and seitan drenched in soy and vinegar sauce, and “Spicy & Tingly Beef Muscle Hand-Ripped Noodles,” which get the tingle from Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers. But it's the “Spicy Cumin Lamb Burger” that Bourdain raved about, thanks to lamb, cumin, red onion, scallions, garlic and longhorn peppers in crispy flatbread.

Choosing your own dish can be influenced by learning the difference between “pulled” and “torn” noodles. With the former, the dough is stretched, slapped, twisted and rolled into long, thin noodles. With torn noodles—also called “biang biang”—the dough is pressed into flat rectangles, carefully stretched to the desired length, and then torn by hand down the middle to split it into two pieces. Regardless of the choice, it's best to make it in-store to get the full Xi'an experience, as that's the only way to get the right consistency and freshness. “Delivery just messes it up,” Jason Wang told Munchies during a demo. However, DoorDash doesn't mind delivery, and neither do Xi'an fans, who still rave about it in reviews despite the compromised authenticity.