Don’t let the modest place fool you. Xi’an Noodles has some of the best noodles in Seattle. It’s one of the rare restaurants that specialize in one thing and do it extremely well. In this case, the specialty is the kind of noodles made in the Chinese province of Shaanxi (which touches Sichuan at its southwest corner), hand-made and pulled by noodle makers who stretch and slap the dough against the counter that make the sounds biang biang, as the Chinese hear it. Not ever having seen this done, which I might one day if I stick around long enough and peer into the open kitchen, I imagine the sound more like a comic-book whap, but whap whap mian doesn’t have that bouncy ring. Neither does thump.
Lily Wu trained in Xi’an, Shaanxi’s capital, with a teacher on how to make the noodles properly. The process is time-consuming and requires discipline and stamina. It would be much easier if a machine could do the work. But, Wu makes the pasta by hand daily. The noodles are very wide and thin, appropriately called ‘belt noodles’ in China. They’re also hand-torn (called ‘hand-ripped’ on the menu) which give them a slightly ragged edge. With her husband, she puts in long hours to run the restaurant named after the city.
One can have these noodles sauced (dry) or in noodle soups (my daughter feels the former is the tastier way to have them here). The vast majority are spicy, which is indicated on the menu with chile symbols. There is also a rice noodle option for the soups.
Spicy Tingly Beef Noodles (pictured above) were excellent. As I expected from freshly made wheat noodles, they were chewy and springy. Because of their width and sauce-covered slickness, they were tricky to grab hold of, let alone maintain a grip on with chopsticks. Green Sichuan peppercorns give the sauce its numbing quality, chile oil and dried pepper flakes, its heat. Straight from the kitchen, these noodles were not exceedingly spicy nor anesthetizing, better to taste nuances of shredded and chopped braised beef, cabbage and green bell peppers in a very flavorful sauce. If you crave more hotness, you can pile on chile oil from the condiments bar. At the top of the menu is Spicy Cumin Lamb Noodles, the most Shaanxinese way to have them.
For the chile-averse, there aren’t too many choices. Cooked fresh tomatoes in Stir Fried Tomato Egg noodles made the sauce teeter on the edge of being too sweet (or was it added sugar?) but they were tempered by scrambled eggs. Other mild choices are Stewed Pork Noodles and Vegetable Noodles.
Xi’an Noodles serves other things, such as the hotpot-like malatang, which is not on the formal menu but is advertised by signage and tubs of ingredients in a separate cooler section. Also on the menu are a few popular street food items, like roujiamo (called ‘burgers’ on the menu). The restaurant has been doing business for less than a year (grand opening, May 1, 2016) but the word has already spread, helped by being included in Seattle Met magazine’s list of 100 Best Restaurants. Expect waits at prime dining hours.
Tidbit: For some now-lost historical reason, biang is the most complex Chinese character to write, consisting of 57 strokes, yet doesn’t even appear in a dictionary. One theory is that it was invented by a noodle shop owner. It almost looks like a pot of boiling noodles.
Xi’an Noodles
5259 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
206.522.8888
zoomeboshi 
Leave a Reply