Xi’an Cuisine

Wanted at least one meal in Chinatown during my visit to Chicago, and my friend Unilocaled and decided she wanted to try Xi’an cuisine.
I’m not an expert at Xi’an food but have dined a few times at various Xi’an Famous Foods in New York City, so it wasn’t completely foreign to me. My friend let me take the lead so I ordered a bunch of dishes to try, essentially one dish from each major category. Everyone guessed correctly that I am Chinese so they spoke Mandarin to me from the moment I entered the restaurant.
Service was adequate, and the interior is actually quite nice, though it’s not a big restaurant.
My two favorite dishes were the flat bread and cold noodles. The soups were nice and hot but the broths were not as rich/​flavorful as I was expecting. The hand-​stretched noodles had a nice chewy texture though, and I also found the soup with little cut-​up chunks of bread intriguing. See my photos + captions for more details.
Highly recommend dining here, especially if you’ve never had food from this region of China! It’s quite different from other regions. Prices are all inexpensive so you can definitely try a number of things during your visit. I think Xi’an Famous Foods in NYC offers up slightly tastier food, but for Chicago, this is still great!

Old traditional noodle. Taste good. All dices taste good. One flaw is they prefer cash and charge additional fee if bill under $ 20

Not the best restaurant in town but we got a lot of nice tasting food for a great price. Stuffed for about $ 10 – 15 a person. The food came out quick. We started with boiled peanuts and potstickers. The potsticker sauce was similar to Sriracha but milder. It was different from the typical sweet/​spicy soy sauce a lot of restaurants serve with the dish. We had an assortment of the flatbreads. Some were a bit dry, it’d be nice if they came with some kind of dipping sauce. I dipped them in noodle broth, nice combo. The noodles with beef had good broth, hence the dipping. The noodles were a little soggy but overall a nice meal. Next time I’d like to try some of the lamb dishes.
— Smile when you order.

Having been to the actual city of Xian, I was a bit disappointed with the food here. My friend and I stopped by and got the lamb flat bread, pig ears, and hand-​stretched noodles with lamb in soup. The pig ears were pretty good and the portion given was pretty large (more than enough to share between two people).
The best part of the meal was the lamb flat bread in my opinion. They were a little too oily but the flavoring was nice (a little bit on the spicy side). The worst part of the meal was the hand-​pulled noodles. I’ll say that the texture of the noodles was good-​the noodles were firm and you could tell that they were hand-​pulled; however, the broth was pretty bland and flavorless.
Even though hand-​pulled noodles are a must in terms of Xian cuisine, I feel as if they were one of the weakest items on the menu. If I came here again, I would try more of the appetizers and I would probably get the lamb flat bread again. My opinion would be to pass on the hand-​pulled noodles at Xian Cuisine.

I have to say that the food here is very close to what I ate in Xi’an, China. They also give parking validations which is a big plus.

Really enjoyed it, but don’t expect typical tourists Chinese! When we came in they stated no rice and no chicken. That was true, so if you want to get a little out of your comfort zone order pork belly with hot oil or lamb testicles! But the soup and breads are fantastic and anyone should like them in my opinion.

Pros: The seaweed, lamb flat bread and fried wide noodles were tasty. The food wasn’t spectacular in any particular regard but it got the job done.
Cons: They were out of every vegetable dish except for the seaweed when we were there (Thursday night at around 8 pm)

The lamp soup tastes really good. It warmed me up in the cold winter night. Good and fast service, great experience overall.

Good god am I glad this place exists. I visited Xi’an a few years back and was really impressed by its local cuisine. My favorites here are the flatbreads, hand-​stretched noodles in hot oil & vinegar, and the cold dish of wide noodles in black vinegar & garlic sauce. So much vinegary, noodle-​y goodness. The noodles: WOW – handmade and totally perfect in every dish I have tried so far. I don’t love the soups here (the lamb broth is a bit gamier than I’d like). Service is decent by Chinatown standards.

Their cold noodle somehow haven’t been as good as last year before they had the fire. But I love this restaurant because it’s the only place in Chicago if you want real authentic Rou jia Mo. simple but good. Worth a try.

This place gives you a sneak peak to the cuisine of northwest China — different combinations of broth, noodles and buns and other things made with flour, and seasoned meat. Not particularly genuine but close enough for me to pay visits.

This is not typically Xi’an’s taste. The noodles is too sour. While Paomo is tasteless.

I came here with a group of friends and the food was soooo tasty for really great prices!!! And the service was amazing too.
Our table got a lot of appetizers to share, and all of them were solid (lotus root, pig ear, peanut dish), and we got the lamb bing and hand stretched noodles too. In my experience, you just can’t go wrong with anything you order here.

On a chilly, snowy night, nothing soothes the soul more than a hot bowl of comfort food. In this case, my fiancé, my friend, and I decided to get piping hot noodles and flatbread made with authentic Xi’an cuisine.
Xi’an Cuisine is a small restaurant, but we were quickly seated and given menus. The waiter explained that their food is made authentically and therefore may tak a while to come be served. We understood the predicament and placed orders for some of their hand-​stretched noodles, pork and lamb flatbreads while catching up over tea and water.
Given that my fiancé came back from visiting Xi’an province to see the Terracotta Army in person, her feedback was of utmost importance. She was not as impressed with the noodles because they had a chewy consistency. She explained that most hand-​pulled noodles made in house are usually very soft and «easily slurpable.» It was evident that the noodles were hand-​pulled though because the noodles were of varying length. Maybe they were over or understreched? Anyhow, the flavors were there. The noodles were glistening with hot oil and served with generous amounts of crisp vegetables and soft, tender meat. But what impressed us the most was the lamb flatbread – seasoned to perfection with ground lamb sandwiched between oiled, pan-​fried flatbread. If you ever come to Xi’an Cuisine, the lamb flatbread is a must!

Been back twice since I’ve discovered it. Small no frills place. Not much ambience but the food more than makes up for it. Get the hand pulled noodles and cold noodles, and of course the flatbreads, I especially liked the cumin lamb. Wish they’d put more cilantro in the flatbreads to give it a touch of freshness and contrasting texture. Nonetheless, love it and will become a regular.

If you are in the area and need a snack, the flatbreads at Xi’an are pretty tasty. I had the cumin lamb and the pork: the lamb was better (had a little hint of spice) but they were both good.
Just make sure to bring cash if you’re eating less than $ 20 worth of food; there’s a minor charge if you’re under $ 20. Not a big deal, but I like to avoid unnecessary expenses :-)

Stopped by to pick up some late lunch and I was not at all disappointed. For $ 20 I got a TON of food. The hand pulled noodles were perfect amount of spicy. The lamb tongue was tender and delicious and for what was billed as a small plate it was a ton of meat. Had to go a little off the beaten path and at least try the lamb testicles. They were perfectly grilled and had nice heat on them.
Overall, quick service, great quality, and great value!!! Will definitely be back.

While the dishes were tasty, the staff lacked courtesy and respect for its LGBT clientele during the Chicago Pride Parade Sunday.
Two of the staff made disparaging remarks about two gay gentlemen who finished dining and departed the restaurant. A couple of ladies overheard their remarks and expressed their displeasure. The staff replied by saying it wasn’t about you two ladies; gay only refers to guys. After the ladies departed, they began to rant about them and their dislike of homosexuals and marriage of two men.
Serving up hate is not palatable to us. We won’t be returning.

For cheap eats how can you beat this place. The flatbreads here are crazy affordable as well as delicious. I tried the lamb with cumin and it was deliciously spiced. Nice and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. It’s like perfect street food and that is the only downside I’d have to say. If they were selling these off a food cart somewhere they’d be selling them by the boxful. However, you can expect a 15 minute or so wait that garuantees the quality of said flatbreads.
The pork one was also good but it was just ok. Not as interesting as the lamb. Still for $ 3.50 each how can you argue with such a bargain. This place is a definite win to get a bite while parusing through Chinatown.

ABC7 Hungry Hound dug up this authentic Xi’an place and that’s why we came. Saturday morning half an hour after opening, we had three kinds of flavored Flat Bread, one noodle soup, by the time people getting busy.
For the Flat Bread, juicy inside with crispy layer. The pork one was fine but you gonna try the Lamb/​beef w. cumin powder one. Noodles were delicious and lamb was tender, put some white pepper or spicy sauce in it would be more tasty.
Credit Card friendly, but have to pay extra $ 1 for cc if you’re not over $ 20.

The flatbread is delicious. The veggie flatbread had seaweed, Tofu noodles and hot peppers. My mom had the beef flatbread it was good but the beef is cold.
We also try the beef potstickers. They were good but they were small. They only had beef and lamb options for both the flatbreads and the noodle soup.
We also tried The pulled noodle beef soup. It’s different the noodles are fresh but it’s not something I was used to. I may have to try again.
If I go back again I would definitely have another flatbread.

Having been to Xi’An Famous Foods in NYC, I was very excited to see a Xi An style restaurant in Chicago finally. The restaurant menu is modeled off of Xi An street food, so limited to cold dishes, noodles, and Xi-​an hamburgers/​pitas. The atmosphere was pretty typical Chinatown,
We tried a variety of items and my favorites were the cumin/​jalapeño lamb hamburger, the lamb soup with dough pieces, and the cold spicy potato strings.
Although not as good as the NYC Xi’An restaurant, I still enjoyed the food and you should definitely check it out if you are a lamb lover.