Xi’an Famous Foods – NYC

After a month of ‘settling’ in to New York City and it’s ever vibrant -not worth missing-i’ll sleep when I die- cultural offerings, it took a bad douse of Bronchitis to finally slow me down!  Nothing like a bad case of disease to make you really home sick…

And so, for the past week, I have taken to curing my physical and mental illness by loitering around Chinatown every chance I get.  Something about the smells.  The crowds of people.  The rather loud often unnecessary hollering.  Did I mention the smells…?  I found comfort in hearing my mother tongue even if it were from the mouth of a stranger!!

Although i’d been more than successful in visiting a large amount of Asian Bakeries and grocery stores -yes I already have my firm favourites: Grand Bakery!  HK style milk tea and their egg sponge paper cake – I was still yet to dine at any of the many Asian restaurants…which, given my fear of eating out alone kind of makes it rather difficult.  So having spent much of the week obsessively ‘researching’ online for good recommended Asian eateries, I found the most commonly written about happened to be a little place called Xi’an Famous Foods.

Xi'an East Village

So on a night where it was cold, rainy and the thought of consuming another dumpling was enough to make me want to self harm (my freezer is FULL of dumplings!! That’s what happens when you put a lazy Asian girl alone… in New York City… who has been hitting EVERY Asian grocer in town!!)  I decided to give Xi’an a go!  It ticked all the boxes: within 0.5 miles (umm… i guess thats less than a kilometer…?)  from my house, did takeaway and was fast and cheap!

Xi’an offers a range of noodles, soups and starter dishes, and is most famous for it’s hand ripped noodles, a dish called the Lamb Face Salad (which I thought about ordering…. maybe next time!) and most highly touted The Cumin Lamb Burger.

Having done all my research online before going, I decided I wasn’t hungry enough to tackle the Lamb Face thing, and didn’t feel like dealing with the wrath of noodle soup done Take Out, so I went with the famous Lamb Burger.  Walking into the tiny shop that is Xi’an, I couldn’t help but feel relieved to find the shop full of Asians!! Not to be controversial… but choosing to adorn your Asian Eatery’s hoarding with the words “Western Chinese Cuisine” hardly instills confidence – and I do not have enough energy to start ranting about why no one (not even white people) orders Lemon Chicken anymore… !  (Upon more research, it seems the Xi’an restaurant chain ‘boasts a unique cuisine that may be best described as a fusion of Middle Eastern and Chinese foods.’)

Cumin Lamb Burger $3

So it took approximately 97 seconds between me ordering and paying, and walking out the door with my dinner!! It also took that 97 seconds of waiting whilst seeing everyone eating their hand ripped noodle goodness to give me SEVERE food envy and make me suddenly starving!!

Lamb Burger

I pull that neat little ‘burger’ out of its bag, to reveal a nicely toasted bun with the filling sitting neatly inside.  I was pretty delighted to find no sauce spills or mess when taken out of the wrapping.

Inside. Cumin spiced lamb

Although, after taking a few initial bites, it didn’t take long for me to wish it had been a sauce laden mess!  The bun tended to be a little… no… actually a lot on the dry side.  Given the Cumin Lamb is not meant to be saucy, it is kind of understandable!  But I wish I was given some hot sauce or something to relieve those bland chunks of bun!!

Having said that though, the lamb was very well cooked.  Not tough at all, and well marinated in the cumin giving off a nice subtle heat (it could have been hotter!! But then again, all the places i’ve eaten and ordered the item with the chillies next to it are lacking heat).

Maybe it was the slightly dense, dry texture of the bun… Or more likely the fact that I feel like i haven’t eaten meat in a long time … I found myself to be struggling at the half way mark.  This little ‘burger’ is surprisingly filling, amazingly cheap and as far as (VERY VERY) fast food goes, I think i’ll be revisiting this over McDonalds.  Now all I have to do is get over my fear of eating out alone and it’ll be Lamb Face Salad time…

Xi’An Famous Foods –

East Village  81 St. Mark’s Place, New York, NY 10003

China Town (counter only| no seating) 88 East Broadway #106, New York, NY 10002

China Town  67 Bayard Street, New York, NY 10013

Flushing 41-28 Main Street Bsmt #36, Flushing, NY 11354

China Bar signature

Remember that episode of 30 Rock when Jenna comes back from a season break 30 pounds heavier after eating a whole summer of Pizza during her run on Broadway in ‘Mystic Pizza: The Musical.’?  Well, DDO didn’t just do a musical tv series.  Or anything to do with Pizza!  But this family dinner WAS most certainly inspired by something on TV (an extremely overplayed, over glamourised tvc on the Chinese cable channel TVB Jade), and left me  bellowing “ME WANT FOOOOOOD!!”

China Bar Signature

Said commercial was for China Bar Signature, an Asian food buffet emporium, offering every possible type of stereotypically eaten asian delight!   It’s a combination of clever marketing, hiring an amazing photographer and offering this “Eat As Much As You Like” haven of food that seems to have made this place EXTREMELY successful, and the whole experience – from booking our table, to the morning of our reservation, to before we arrived, to when we were 3 minutes late, and finally being shoo-ed out once our ‘allocated eating time’ was up – left us speechless… or was that the food coma…?

China Bar Signature is HUGE!  As you drive down Burwood Highway it’s hard to miss this giant food cube of a restaurant as it glistens on the corner lit up by the token red neons that China Bar is so famously known for.  You walk in to find a grand dining hall packed with people, packed with staff, and most of all PACKED with food.  As we are hurriedly seated (much to the distress of the maitre’d we are 4 minutes late, well not late but 4 minutes into our booking time range of 6:15 – 6:30) at our round table for 5 near the entrance.  In case you haven’t picked up already, there’s a reason this place is so damn big.  It’s because when you offer people too much food, with endless food varieties (…they even offered dim sum!  Ummm! Its 7:30pm…. ) people come in HOARDS!!

So in order to deal with the masses of hungry humans needing to stuff their face with limitless amounts of Asian themed fare (present company included…), the establishment has 2 seatings, 5:30pm and 8:00pm.  With our booking for 6:30 we are warned almost every 4 minutes leading up to 6:30 that we HAVE to leave at 7:45 and asked “are you sure that is enough time to finish eating…?”

Dim Sum assortments

Given the pressure from the restaurant to eat and leave, DDO and the Fam had devised some what of an eating plan of attack… which was almost immediately VITTO-ed by JP and I.  You see, N along with Mumsy and Dadsy thought it a good idea to tackle one station per person, to ensure we got to try as much as humanly possible without wasting time.  Clever idea.  But I was only interested in eating an hour and a half worth of unauthentic sushi and sashimi… and maybe a dumpling or 2 (coz eating Sui Mai at dinner times … like eating chocolate for breakfast…!!).  And JP was pretty much all over that Oystar bar (2 rounds worth) faster then we could pour our first cups of tea.

Seafood bar

So aside from the usual fried rice, noodle bar, steamed dumplings -which include xiao long bao and assortment of dim sum dumplings… which I think is PRETTY WEIRD but then again, so is the whole concept of this place! SO sparing judgment.

…there are stir fries,  a Japanese section, an Indian/Malaysian offering, a salad bar (uh… AS IF!!  needless to say that area was untouched on my part… ) Chinese roast meats – which were roast pork, pork belly and peking duck, and of course seafood bar.

Maki assortment

It didn’t take me long to beeline for the sushi bar (which was my favourite part of the TVC) with it’s brightly coloured maki rolls all lined up.  The flavours were pretty standard, but tasted acceptable considering the environment we were in…

Seared Salmon & Eel Sushi

My favourite was the seared Salmon and Eel Sushi, which I’m pretty sure I cleaned out at least a whole platter of each!  They were really fresh and surprisingly, the bed of rice it nestled on was far from being dry and rock solid like many other places that offer this type of sushi.  Although I did manage to try some of the other things, like satay, and peking duck, after about 3 rounds of sushi my stomach was so full of rice I could almost explode.  Thats the thing with “all you can eat”… there really is only so much you can eat, before you feel ill.  And I was certainly well on my way…

mums tailor made fishball noodle soup

Mumsy was probably the smartest with her eating choices and opted to head straight for the noodle man where she was able to tailor make her bowl with choice of noodles as well as assorted dumplings, balls and vegetable accompaniments.   Thankfully for us, her relatively un-overstuffed belly meant she still had room for dessert…

Coconut pudding

Mixed cakes

The dessert spread was just as impressive as the savory food.  So impressive in fact, there was a massive line that wrapped all the way around the dessert run and around the bend towards to restrooms. It may also have been something to do with the fact that it was getting close to that 7:45 cut off.

Offering everything from pastries and tarts, cheese and bread to sponge cakes, cheese cakes and puddings… Most impressively being the retail sized

Pastries & more sweets

freezer full of ice cream sticks!! (You know those one’s you always see at asian grocers that you never quite know if they are icey poles or ice creams… icey creams…?)  By this stage, JP had to excuse himself from being so full.  He literally got up and had to walk around the restaurant. Mum, N and I did a round of desserts for the table, and Dadsy stayed by the table … smart move Dadsy!!

Although we only returned with 2 small plates of an assortment of little cakes and something red beany, we all struggled to finish them, and even the mere hand to mouth action was too difficult.

Freezer full of ice cream poles (?)

We started as a troop bellowing “Me want FOooood!” with eye’s for food being bigger then our actual stomachs, and walked out (to a line of hopefuls outside, awaiting their glorious hour and a half of excess consumption) feeling completely defeated by the Food Monster that drew us in!

NOTE TO SELF: its much funnier experiencing the effects of over consumption through Jenna on TV Land than in real life… should also probably stop eating sundae’s whilst working out on the treadmill….

China Bar Signature

380 Burwood Highway, Burwood East  (03) 9887 8011

Post Soccer Ju Dumpling House Time

It’s kind of awkward timing to be playing soccer at 8:00pm, in Hawthorn, with a painfully famished belly!  Unless you have worked up THAT much of an appetite after the match (personally I use the term playing VERY lightly… I tend to use more energy thinking of where to eat at such ‘supper’ hours being in the burbs…) and have the stomach and the weekly budget to fork out at least $30 bucks at the crappy local pub (I DON’T!  Especially not with the sub par menu and even worse service!), finding a place to dine afterwards becomes a sport in itself.

This week, after a successful win, DDO decided to forgo the usual ‘pizza’ option and try our luck with the local dumpling house.  It was actually the brain fart of our team mates E and JP, who had dined there the week before …also in a fit of desperation for ‘dumpling action’ locally.  Because, let’s be honest (in the wise words of Ms E), how could anyone deny a cheap and cheerful dumpling dinner!!

So Ju Dumpling House (formally the Sichuan Dining Room in all it’s gaudy, gold gilded glory) is much like any Camy’s or Shanghai Dumpling Village you’d find in the CBD.  It’s Cheap.  It’s fast.  It’s B.Y.O, and you get your dumpling fix!  In addition to dumplings, Ju Dumpling House also offers the usual Shanghai cuisine suspects like Ma Po Tofu, noodles, and your token chilli covered animals from land and sea.

We decided to share a few plates of dumplings and a bowl of noodles… well JP (God bless his over active thyroid) wanted a few plates of everything, from every category… 3 against 1!  Bless him and his over active appetite, he had even brought along a bottle of red for us to properly enjoy our after soccer dumpling craving!! First to arrive was our (very traditional) Zha Jiang noodles.

Zha Jiang Noodles

This is a staple in Shanghai dining, as a quick snack or dinner.  The thick, usually fresh made noodles are cooked just right so they are still bouncy and light and topped with minced pork cooked in dark soy and garlic, and freshly grated cucumber.

Zha Jian Noodles served!

Before serving, it should be mixed up so when you serve it up you get a nice mix of everything.  I’m not usually a noodle fan, but this looked too good to pass up.  The mince was perfectly salty and saucey and wrapped around each noodle to give it all flavour.  Cucumber is used very commonly to balance out the over powering salty/chilli flavour.

Naturally, each table comes with it’s token soy, vinegar and chilli condiments.  At the risk of sounding like the easiest person to please, you could add chinese vinegar or chilli to dry pasta and i would rave about it!  So well done Ju! You first had me at B.Y.O.  and now you have me at condiments!!  So far so good!  Unlike many of the other Dumpling places in and around town, the service is also pretty good here.  I haven’t had to order off a machine, our waiter is not only friendly (enough) but is also capable of taking our order without any mis-haps or surprise dishes being brought to our table … Triple WIN!

It didn’t take us long to devour those delicious noodles, and we’re ready for our main event… DUMPLINGS!!  We decided to order the Xiao Long Bao (the soupy ones),  a plate of pan fried pork dumplings and a plate of steamed chicken and prawn (just to live on the edge and stray from the traditional).  First to arrive was the Xiao Long Bao, which having the luxury of consuming copious amounts of in Shanghai, can be very hit and miss in Melbourne.

Xiao Long Bao

Since experiencing more bad than good of these little soupy delights, my standards have been appropriately adjusted (because yes, despite the rave reviews, even Hu Tong has it’s bad batches!)  But these were pretty good.  Could have been the wine talking, or the fact that I’d ACTUALLY participated in more than 3 minutes of physical excercise, but these little dumplings were light skinned with a fragrant soupy center.  And the skin wasn’t so light that merely looking at them caused spontaneous (and extremely ANNOYING) combustion!  Next to follow were the pan fried pork dumplings.

Pan Fried Pork Dumplings

The skin was nice and fried rather well, but a little on the thicker side.  There was not a hint of dryness which is often the case… nothing worse then an over fried, kind of stale, pale looking dumpling…  But everything about these little fried pork bombs was delicious.  And actually tasted fresh.  Can’t complain about a pork dumpling that ACTUALLY tastes like pork!

Last but not least was the steamed chicken and prawn dumplings.  Pretty ‘zany’ selection on our part (we’re pretty traditional asian when it comes to the serious stuff… and yes,  dumplings are pretty serious in our books!) but we thought 3 pork dumplings was a wee bit excessive and beef is NEVER an option in a dumpling… plus we figured prawn could act as our ‘non meat’ part of the meal.

Steamed Chicken and Prawn Dumplings

So aside from ‘Har Gow’ which is a proper prawn dumpling and is eaten at Yum Cha (breakfast or lunch), we don’t really eat it in a dumpling… with chicken!  But this tasted surprisingly okay.  Again, skin was light, with vinegar and chilli, it was okay. …. and that’s all i’m going to say about this very Oz-asian culinary adventure.

Considering we didn’t have to a) line up, b) pay for parking in town or c) have to be ‘served’ by a computer and actually got a decent dumpling feed I left Ju Dumpling House more than satisfied.  For a little over $10 per head (thanks JP for the wine) I don’t see how anyone could say no to an invitation to post soccer dumplings, which (unlike my sporting performance) KICKS ARSE in comparison to eating at the local overpriced, badly staffed- pub!  May not have kicked a goal at soccer, but dining at Ju Dumpling House = kicking dinner goals!

Ju Dumpling House

723 Glenferrie Road Hawthorn VIC 3122

(03) 9819 0038