Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe — Restaurant in Boston

Backpacking through China for 8 months means I made a mandatory stop in Xian for like 5 days. The food there was exceptional, especially the street food. Walking down Main Street Woburn I was surprised at the diversity of the cuisines on offer, everything from Indian to Brazilian to, yup, Xian street foods!

A few notes:

They are only open 4 days a week, Thur to Sun. That kind of limits things if you are looking for weekday lunches.

The cold noodle dish that I wanted is only available on weekends. That also really limits things. I guess I should only come here on the weekend. But then again, I don't really want to be in Woburn on a weekend.

The kitchen staff was not Chinese. Not sure how relevant this is but I feel that people come here for authentic Xian street food and if non-Chinese people can be trained to make amazing Xian street food, then more power to them. So it all comes down to the quality of the food.

Lamb skewers were okay but they were super spicy. While I can eat spicy, it left me panting. I didn't see any water available but they did have a fridge for buying beverages. I was surprised that the person taking the order did not ask me if I wanted them spicy.

The lamb "sandwich" was a HUGE disappointment. I had them in Xian and also in NYC's Xian Famous Foods. This one came out and not only was it small, the bread was not a "shao bing," the authentic lamb sandwich bread. On top of that, there was hardly any meat at all in the TINY sandwich. In fact, it was about half an onion chopped up and mixed in with a few sad pieces of meat. Why so much greasy onion??? Gross. Just because I'm not on a date does not mean I want to eat half an onion and have onion grease coming out my skin pours for the rest of the day. I almost never return food but I had to bring this back to the counter. I had to explain that I did not order an onion sandwich. In fact, I'm not a huge onion fan and I certainly did not want to eat half an onion. Furthermore, the photo they present to customers when ordering the food in the lit up displace shows NO ONION in that sandwich. It was ALL MEAT. So when I asked about that the cashier told me the photo was wrong. The photo is only for the pork sandwich and not the lamb one. Okay but you list both sandwiches next to the photo of two meat only sandwiches. What is the customer supposed to think? They then gave me another sandwich without the onions. It was pretty underwhelming even without the onions. Maybe two spoonfuls of chopped up lamb for $5.50. Sucks because I really really wanted to like this place and was stoked to have found an authentic Xian street food place so close to home. I might come back to try their noodles and see if that might result in a...

This was REALLY good! Get the pulled noodles. They came out fast and staff were very nice to explain everything. It was pretty empty at lunch time on a Monday and it was very quiet. They had plenty of utensils and a fridge where you can pick drinks or dessert.

The one thing I would note is that there menu is very limited. The menu is spread around the restaurant, but I would focus on the menu to the left of where you order They had no chicken. They had lamb and pork. I don't remember if they had shrimp. The pulled noodles comes with cilantro alone, so I got pork for an additional price. I added extra hot sauce. It was spicy, but not Hot Ones spicy.

The person I was with ordered the soup. It's got mushrooms in it. He took twice as long to finish it. He said it was a little spicy. We shared a Crush where I poured some in an extra bowl.

The trick with the chopsticks is that you should twist the noodle around the chopsticks. I would just eat it straight and not worry about cutting the noodles. You can do that with the chopsticks, but it makes the noodles hard to pick up. They are thick noodles, but they were very long.

The chairs are hard and squeak loudly when you move them. The air con was on and they had a fan, so the temp was fine. It's a small restaurants, so note that you might have to just do takeout.

As I said, go to this restaurant and get the noodles. This place got awards. Need to get Mikey Chen here!

One note about the attached pictures is that I took pics of the bowls after I finished. I was so in love with the noodles that I forgot to stop eating and take a picture for Google. Sorry about that! This place isn't good for a date because the noodles will feel like cheating on them.

Enjoy...

Gene's Flatbread Cafe is located on Bedford Street, a tiny restaurant near Downtown Crossing. Gene's isn't fancy. There are a few tables and counter seating in the window which fill up quickly, and if you get takeout, you kind of have to stand awkwardly around the edges of the store as you wait for you food, and stare jealously at the people sitting down who are already eating. If you go early, the wait isn't bad, and even when there is a wait it isn't terribly long. It's worth it because you can see in the kitchen and you know they are making all the food right then, to order, so it's incredibly fresh. There are only a few things on the menu. One of them is the flatbread sandwich in the name. It's only $4, but I can't really tell you if it's good. I assume it's good, but I can't bring myself to order anything but the amazing hand pulled noodles. The noodles are life-changing. They come in plain, which is $7 or with cumin lamb for $9. They also have a few soups, which I haven't tried but a lot of people who eat in seem to get (I think it's risky to takeout soup). You can actually see the cooks in the back pulling, spinning, stretching the noodles into long ribbons of starchy delicious goodness which will be cooked then tossed with spices(including lots of garlic, so be forewarned for any future plans that involve close contact). The noodles are wide, cut long, and have a nice chew to them. The staff is friendly and what the place lacks in decor it makes up for in DELICIOUS NOODLES. One thing to note, it's cash only, so hit up the ATM...