Xi’an Sizzling Woks

After been here several time, my impression was absolutely bad services whatever or whenever. They were so rude and reluctant to serve while you ordering, asking for something, even paying check! Food was fine, but nothing surprise. I would never ever recommend this place for anyone, expect who I hated.

Sometimes you just need some good olé fashioned General Tsos delivered. You set your expectations accordingly and hope for the best. And sometimes, you hit the freaking jackpot. Quick delivery (~30 minutes), solid pricing, and above all a high quality chicken dish. Took a gamble on the Chinese Chives Pie and will gladly take the gamble again for my next order. Looking forward to keeping my business with these guys for the foreseeable future.

Pretty good. The beans were good, my white husband kept complimenting; the liangpi was good, a little bit soft less chewy to my standard; the beef bun was better than the pork bun.

Really good food from Chinese-​Muslim region of China. Solid spot that has really good cumin beef sandwiches. Everything we tried was solid.

Love this place… This is the third or fourth Szechuan place I’ve tried definitely the best!
Fresh Dough made daily for all dumplings and noodles … My favorite is the twice cooked pork
Mmmmmmmm…can’t beat $ 7.95 lunch …
Really sweet cute wait staff too… Extremely friendly and helpful… keep it up!

So my father’s family is from Xi’an and I grew up eating this type of cuisine. I need to come back to try the yang rou pao muo (lamb bread soup) and Liang Fen.
I tried the rou jia muo (lamb with bread) and the yang rou chuan (spicy lamb skewers). I’d recommend going super spicy on both if you like spice as the medium level of spice was not that spicy.
Sadly the food wasn’t as hot as I’d want it to be but that’s okay. I’m just happy to get a taste of xian.

I need to go back to Xi’an Sizzling Woks to get a better sense of the menu. During my first visit, I wanted to try too many things, and my dining partner (my mom) wasn’t interested in being too adventurous: P
So, I opted for the Szechuan Pickled Vegetable lunch special with Pork (and hot & sour soup). I was really pleasantly surprised by the pickled vegetable special — it was funky and bright — the roasted pork added a nice meaty flavor. The hot & sour soup was average, but enjoyable.

I ordered delivery noodles and Chinese hamburger from Grubhub yesterday. Flavory and delicious. I would definitely recommend this restaurant. And I also got $ 10 off for Grubhub new users offer (offer ends the end of May). A nice bargain!

I would give a three and a half star actually. The food served pretty fast probably because we ordered the pork bun and the kebab. I like the pork bun either spocy or marinated, but I feel the kebab is too cold to be appreciated.

After taking a look of all the good reviews of this place, I was pretty stoked to grab dinner here with a couple of friends. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience and I wasn’t impressed with either their service or the food.
It took the waiter around 15 minutes before coming over to our table to take our order and give us any sort of beverages. Mind you, this is a relatively small restaurant and there was only 3 other tables occupied at the moment. There were least 4 waiter (resses) working who mostly stood around and talked amongst themselves while we waited for them. At one point, one of the tables had wrapped up and left the restaurant and one of the various waitresses goes over to pick up their check. The lady opens the tab right then and there and began to complain about the tip left behind and the bunch of them continued back and forth about how much tip the patrons should’ve left for a good while. *Insert sideye*
As far as the food goes, my friends and I each ordered the chinese hamburger which was largely unimpressive. My bun tasted pretty stale and the meat certainly wasn’t much to write home about either. For my main meal, I ordered the «spicy sour minced pork noodles»…while I will admit that I eat a crap-​ton of spicy things and this could throw off my tolerance to spice as compared to other folks but there wasn’t much flavor or spice to this noodle soup. I ended up putting 2 spoonfuls of hot chili oil into soup just so it wasn’t so bland. The noodles were also super over-​cooked and slightly mushy.
Would I swing back for round 2? Probably not. I mean, it is Chinatown after all… spicy noodle soups await at every corner. The one good thing about this place is their price, there are definitely cheap eats here.

Delicious! Im glad Unilocal led us here as we were in the mood for some authentic xian eats. This was comparable to our limited but previous really good experience with the cuisine in NYC. The portions weren’t as big as we expected coming in cold and hungry but it was a good meal.
The cumin lamb skewers were well cooked but just felt light portion-​wise for the cost.
The piping fresh spicy biang biang noodles (with garlic scallion) were great. I didn’t do the best job mixing up the dish as it comes out pre-​constructed with individual spices in different parts of the bowl but it worked out well as we were feeling a little spiced out by the end of the meal and appreciating the blander pieces of noodles: D
I liked the hamburger a lot but again wish the portion of meat was a little bit more.
Efficient service with food coming out fast. Definitely a nice new experience in china town.

Excellent.
1) I love Xi’an Chinese food. I am Indian American, so I love spicy food. Sichuan and Xi’an are my two favorite.
2) Got the cumin lamb burger and the lamb skewers.
3) Service was fast. And ambiance is nice.

Still 3 stars.
This time I got delivery. Finally order the Biang Biang noodles with scallion-​ginger sauce. There was neither scallion or ginger found amongst the clumpy, sticky noodles that melded together during the travel to my home. What it did taste like was dirty fry old schmeared with chili oil/​flake, with baby bok chow thrown in for color.
I ordered the wonton in chili oil, again. I totally forgot that they were mediocre last time. And they are still mediocre.
The Cumin lambsticks tasted good, but they were «grilled» poorly. Like over low flame (maybe even NO flame) so the meat look like they were boiled, had no color.
So yeah meh. Not worth $ 25 I paid to get it brought to me. Oh there is no way this would have fed 2 ppl.

I’ve had some good food at Xi’an Sizzling Woks and I’d be curious to come back to try more dishes.
— The Biang Biang noodle with ginger and scallion was very nice. Just a perfect simple bowl of noodles. Definitely recommended. 4 stars
— Pickled pepper wood ear was okay, nothing special. 3 stars
— The pita bread soaked in lamb & beef soup is tasty. My only issue is there wasn’t quite enough soup to balance out all the bread in there. 3.5 stars
— Chinese hamburger was so-​so. I probably wouldn’t bother with this one again since there are better options to be had here.
Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.

While having the good fortune to be within walking distance (ok anything within ~1 mile) of the many stores and restaurants of Chinatown, I have a bad habit of going back to the regular hotspots and the usual dishes. While an adventurous eater, sometimes I just want comfort food instead of funky foodstuffs. Xi’an Sizzling did not disappoint — deftly balancing familiarity while introducing elements of the exotic.
The venue is not fancy with a diner feel, but the low-​key, hole-​in-​the-​wall spots often surprise. Not being familiar with this cuisine, we went with the chef recommendations and house specials listed in the menu to generate a baseline.
* Chinese Hamburger (braised pork). $ 3.50. Flavorful filling, but dry …
* Golden Mushroom with Sesame Oil Sauce. $ 5.50. Crunchy and delicate — very good if you want something light, but can be overpowered by the other dishes with more spices and flavor.
* Xi’an Pancake. $ 5.95. Another mild dish, thin crepey wrap cocooning tender potato stick filling.
* Xi’an Liang Pi. $ 4.95. This kicked butt! The spicy tangy sauce and spongy/​al dente texture of the gluten/​noodles respectively were a treat to the tastebuds. Now we’re talking!
* Spicy Sour Minced Pork Noodles. $ 6.95. The highlight of our meal! Hearty, filling, meaty, tangy, and heartwarming. This delight is going on my «regular» comfort food list … pry it from my grabby hands if you dare!
In summary: cheap, flavorful, and filling. Definitely worth return visits to explore the rest of the menu!
Aside: There are 2 sister locations: 1) Xi’an Sizzling Woks — Chinatown and 2) Xi’an Cuisine — Olde City. While serving the same dishes with the same portions, the Olde City location has higher prices than the Chinatown location by ~$ 2 per dish (Spicy Sour Minced Pork Noodles as control)!

We visit Philadelphia at least couple times a month for business and tried almost every 4 and up stars restaurants there and this place is our favorite.
If you live in NY like us, you get spoiled with great, authentic, delicious cuisines and that makes you pretty picky. So these 4 stars are NY level 4 stars :)
If you know Xi’an Famous Foods in NY and like their food you should pay a visit to Philadelphia just to test Sizzling Xi’an Woks’ food. You won’t regret 2 hours drive :)
Our favorites are,
Liang Pi — such a light, refreshing dish (amazing souce, texture of the tofu is just perfect, cucumbers and soy sprouts are always fresh and tasty)
Lamb skewer — meat is very very very tender, seasoned with cumin.
Smoked tea duck — the best roasted duck I have had so far (as good as the ones I had in China if not better)
Cumin beef lo mein, cumin beef hamburger, biang biang noodles and dan dan noodle are our other favorites.
Enjoy!

We ordered Liang pi, biang biang noodle (don’t know why it calls this name because the Chinese name is nothing close to this): pretty authentic place for their noodles.
Crispy rice: I feel the sauce is a bit too americanized. Feels like those you got in any American Chinese restaurant. But the crispy rice is good.
ma po tofu: don’t order this dish. It’s Sichuan dish and they completely screwed it up the «Ma».
Small place, pretty local that no one speaks English.

I’ve come to this place a few times and have always left satisfied.
Most recently, I came here when I only had around half an hour to sit down and grab lunch. I ordered the cumin beef lunch special under the suggestion of one of the waiters and thought the beef was tender and tasty. I’ve been here two other times for dinner and while none of the dishes were mindblowingly delicious, I thought the food here was really authentic and decently priced. Portion size for lunch was good, but I remember the other dishes I got for dinner being much larger. I’m sure it varies depending on what you get.
Also, quick and friendly service. I see myself going here in the future again.

As you can see from my previous reviews I’m a big fan of the Biang Biang noodles. And all things said, everything I’ve ever gotten from the place is good.
Today I ordered the Biang Biang for delivery. I put in an order in advance as I am working in an office, and put a time of «4:15pm» and ordered it at 2:00pm. I got a call around 3:00pm asking if we wanted the delivery at 4:15pm or now. I told the lady we needed it at 4:15pm because we do not have an allotted lunch break until then.
The delivery arrived promptly at 4:15pm which was much appreciated — however, take a look at my newly uploaded biang biang noodles pictures. Every noodle is stuck together. I can pick up the whole bowl with one swoop of chopsticking. Either the noodles were not made fresh to delivery at 4:15pm and that’s why they are stuck together (which is what I suspect) or. don’t order this for delivery.

Xi’an Sizzling Woks does its namesake food very well. As others have commented, stick to their Chef Recommendation and House Special menu and you will have a unique and enjoyable meal. The farther you wander from Xi’an, the more the cuisine slides toward the norm, and becomes like most other shops in the area. Best to stay on the Silk Road from beginning to end.
My experience last week proves the point. We ordered Dumpling in Chili Sauce (Szechuan), Xi’an Liang Pi (Cold Mild Spice Noodles), Biang Biang Noodles w/​Ginger Scallion Sauce (Rave), and Spicy Pot Flavor Fish Fillet (Surprise Star of the Show).
The Dumplings were the weak link in our meal. The skin was thicker than in a true Szechuan house, and the ground pork while plentiful, did not exhibit much flavor. The Chili Sauce was not nearly hot enough. We were sorry we wasted stomach space on something so mediocre.
The Xi’an Liang Pi was a fettuccini width cold noodle bathed in a semi-​hot sauce with Tofu, Shoots, and a few things I could not identify. It was good and renewed our faith that the rest of the meal would be deliciously distinct.
We moved on to the Biang Biang Noodles in Ginger Scallion Sauce. As you have already read everywhere on this page, these Biang Biang are Bangin! Our server stirred the bowl for us to be sure the sauce coated as much of the pasta as possible. These hand cut bad boys were longer than a foot, and required high end dexterity to lift them high enough to clear the pile in the dish, maneuver them over to the small plate and then work the chop sticks to your lips well enough to take hold of the noodle and suck it into your mouth. Slurpy mess, but well worth the effort, as these were terrific due to the play of ginger, scallion and cumin (I think) on the tongue. Subtle heat that grew slowly, but never approach the scalding of a Szechuan chili dish. The noodles were firm and chewy and filling.
We would have called the night a great success if we had stopped there, but the urge to try something more brought us to the Spicy Pot Fish Fillets. These tender morsels of fluke were crisp on the raised texture of each fillet, and included veggies and mushrooms is a wonderful red/​orange sauce that also packed a punch, but more gently than, say, Emai across the street. I loved this dish, and will try the other variations with beef, chicken, lamb and pork intestine in the future.
Xi’an Sizzling Woks is a smallish shop with no more than a dozen tables. Best to get there early or late to avoid a wait. It represents the style and cooking of this very old city that was once the capital of a Chinese Dynasty, and is now an industrial and university town, exceedingly well. It is certainly worth a visit (both city and restaurant). It could easily become a regular stop on my Chinatown cruise.