Xi’an Famous Foods

On Saturday, Justin texted me to see if I wanted to go to Flushing for lunch. Since I’m always looking for people to go to Flushing with me, I jumped at the opportunity to tag along with Justin, Julie, and his friend, John. We met up at the train station (I was right behind them on the escalator) and took the 7 to Main Street. While we were riding the train to Flushing, we agreed that we would go to the Flushing Mall since it had a food court and we could all find things from different stands to share. I wanted to go to the Xian Foods stall, not only because I’ve seen it on Anthony Bourdain’s show, but because I went to Xian with my mom after graduating from college and I REALLY loved the food. Xian is known primarily for their terracotta warriors:

BUT, they also have amazing food; I was going through my other blog (yes, I blogged in college. You can read my xanga here) Anyway, I was looking at all of the pictures of food that I took from China and realized that I really haven’t eaten any food like that since. In Xian, my mom was a guest of various universities, so we were treated really well (party after extravagant party) and I ate REALLY well because while my mom was talking to people, I was eating the food off her plate In Xian, they have bread that is the most dense thing I have EVER eaten in my life; it’s so dense that people put it in soups to soak up all of the good stuff (and it doesn’t crumble because it’s just flour and water). Here’s some of the soup I had in Xian:

Pig intestines, noodles, hot sauces, and clumps of bread

Shark fin soup with bread

Even though I went in the middle of summer, I looked forward to drinking the soup because it was just THAT GOOD. They also used the bread to make little hamburgers:

The bread is really chewy and soaks up all of the juices from the meat (in that picture, I think it was lamb).

Okay, so, on Saturday, I went to Flushing and went to the Flushing Mall to eat at Xian Foods:

Xian Foods is probably one of the more famous food stalls in the Flushing Mall because it’s been on Anthony Bourdain’s show and was featured on the Flushing Food Tour from the New York Times. I think they recently opened this stall because when I came here on the Flushing Food Tour, I don’t remember it being here (or I just overlooked it). You wait in line while a man and wife prepare food for you. I was looking at all of the options and decided to go with cold noodles (liang pi):

Hot soup with lamb and noodles:

And a lamb and cumin burger:

The liang pi noodles were the best of the dishes; it literally translate to cool skin and they’re a really good summer dish; cool and refreshing served with a combination of peanut sauce, hot sauce, soy sauce, and other spices that make the dish really memorable and messy (I got it all over my white dress). I ate the dish a lot in China, but with different variations (one place served it with chili sauce and it was absolutely amazing. I still dream about it).

The hot soup wasn’t bad, but I wish I bought a piece of bread to soak up the juices; I figured the noodles were enough, but they really weren’t. The noodles were handmade; when you ordered, the guy behind the counter flung the dough on the counter to stretch it and stuck it straight into some boiling water.

The disappointment of the day was the lamb burger (lamb with cumin); Justin said it tasted like a taco (the cumin did make the meat taste very…taco-y) and the meat didn’t taste like it was any good. The lamb had too many pieces of fat and wasn’t very enjoyable.

Justin, Julie, and John ordered some spicy dumplings, regular dumplings, soy milk, green beans, and vegetable soup. We were basically rolling back to the subway, but very happy from our food coma. If you ever want to go to Flushing, let me know because I’d love to tag along!