Xi'an Famous Foods 西安名吃 | Downtown Brooklyn — Restaurant in New York

I used to love going to the manhattan location since its right by my house. I rooted for jason since he was chinese american like me. And had a mainland parent who started the business. When they first started the food was good, now it is not as good. Those is a lot of lost in flavor. Otherwise I thank the founder for taking in some of my siberian turkic friends and hiring them. I hope they can do better in the future. As for this food it is a central asian food similiar to kazakh, kyrgyz and dungan food you can find in lagman house with their own special family sauce. The food is in the ancient captial of xian with gokturk and xiongnu (hun/mongol) influence with chinese cuisine and the people are central asian chinese. And even if you go to xian you will not figure out the special sauce.

I read that the founder thinks foreigners can make good hand pull noodles. It is my opinion if you try the five fingers of kazakh Beshbarmak, lagman from dungan chinese(hui) you will only find that asians make the best handpull noodles

Edit: they replied back to me. I learned how to make lagman in Kazakhstan. It’s an art and a craft. And the noodles there taste much better than in xian or xian foods. Only Asians can do it. Just like Mongolian are good at horse archery and Chinese are good at manufacturing because the hours spend there is much more. More exposure. Hui people have been making noodles at long time. So we’re Kazakhs from uighurs. There is a difference on why pasta and noodles are different. I’m confident that all my friends in Central Asia makes better lagman than you and your employees. All knows how to make a lagman. All identify as Asian. Just a bunch of whataboutism with a Abc who can’t take a opinion about his food. If you want the real opinion about your product. Then see how long term customers would respond. I get not all Asians want to make 拉面. And it’s a international city. With Asian making only 4 percent of the us population. I still stand by Asians will make it better. Mongolians are right. Chinese have no pride and would sell their mother for money. That’s why he is dissing his own people. Also I took culinary class. And I’m not the one framing into cooking. I’m the paying customer. The paying customer does not get to be your staff. Don’t deflect from your responsibility. There is no specific. Your location isn’t consistent. Sometimes it’s good sometimes it’s not. Sometimes your foreigners make okay lagman. Otherwise your manhattan location makes the best one. Your quality has been dropping and even one of the dishes had less vegetables and spice. Sometimes it has the right enough. It’s not consistent. Since you first released. Yeah I’m not a coach. But Even if I’m not a food critic. It is still an opinion. Your noodles are made by your founder. But who ever is hand pulling it. Something about it...

Great Food overall, the atmosphere feels nice. Seating is quite low and reminds me of a ramen shop layout. Staff are nice, not super outgoing though. You still have a feeling of welcoming though as you sit down. The kiosk has you punch in your name, but they still end up calling you by your number which to me seems a bit against the purpose of putting your name on the order in the first place. Otherwise, nothing noteworthy besides that. As food goes, I ordered the Lamb dumplings, Tofu Custard, and braised pork bun. I rather like the decision to have your own identity and make things spicy regardless of if someone can eat it or not. They come with 3 levels of spice, spicier the better. For the lamb dumplings the sauce had a bit of a tartness to it which reminded me of ponzu. It was good but didn't have a very deep complexity to it, pretty average. The dumplings themselves were nice though they were a bit dense. Didn't really get much of a lamb flavor from it strangely enough. The tofu was by far the worst thing I had. It looked very appetizing from first glance, but it was a wolf in sheep's clothing. The only thing that was a saving grace for it was the fact that it had the soup around it. I know tofu is supposed to be flavored by what you serve it with, but the chunks were so large that most of it tasted of nothing unless you get a bit of the soup in there with it. I recommend finding your tofu fill somewhere else or with another dish because it was not worth the buy. Completely on the other hand, The pork bun. The pork bun was the star of the night. Being one of the cheapest things on the menu and one of the most delicious. It took me by surprise that the pork would be so soft and flavorful. It hit all the right notes for me guaranteed. You'll find good flavors at this location, still worth...

Where I grew up — Hangzhou — is notorious for bland food in China. However, if this place opened in Hangzhou, it would probably shut down within a week.

So plain. So weird. So bad. Not decent. Not authentic.

Maybe it works for people who have never been to China. I won’t be going again.

———— (Edit: Just saw the owner’s response months later…)

This restaurant is quite well-known — not every Chinese-owned business manages to expand into a multi-location chain.

In fact, before I even moved to NYC, I was genuinely excited to try it. It had been called a “pride of the Chinese community,” and I had seen it featured in countless magazines.

So I really gave it a fair shot — not just once, but five times — hoping to finally understand what made it so special.

Unfortunately, the food was consistently plain. I kept giving it chances, and even when I took it home, it was because I wanted to improve the flavor myself — not to insult the restaurant.

What shocked me most wasn’t the food — it was the owner’s response to honest feedback.

My original review was short — just a small note for myself, a reminder not to give this place another try.

Instead of addressing the issue, the owner launched into a sarcastic attack on my display name and more.

I also noticed that other reviewers with Chinese last names received similarly aggressive replies.

As another reviewer, Yassy Huang, put it simply: “It doesn’t taste good 😅😅.” I couldn’t agree more. It’s not personal — just honest.

A restaurant that targets customers who speak up — instead of fixing the problem — is ultimately setting itself up to fail.

Being one of the few Xi’an noodle shops in NYC doesn’t make you immune to basic standards.

Real quality doesn’t panic under criticism. And real respect starts with the way you treat your...