Chong Qing Xiao Mian — Restaurant in San Francisco

A tale of two mian shops. One is highly revered; the other exists sotto voce. One is in the wondrous San Gabriel Valley; the other is in noxious San Francisco. One, soon after opening, grew to many locations; the other drudges quietly along in Frisco's Chinatown. What is Mian? "Mian" is Mandarin for noodle. A bowl of xiao mian is a staple breakfast for the denizens of Chongqing, China's most populated city. Although the mega metropolis has become its own provincial region, the cuisine belongs within the milieu of Sichuan cooking. What does a Chongqing bowl of mian look like? The noodles are thin and made from wheat. The broth is laden healthily (maybe unhealthily) with chili oil. From this basic axiom, variations are born. My favorite is dan dan mian. Mian (the restaurant), based in SoCal, has done well for itself. It received encomiums from on high: it featured in both the penultimate and final "101 Best List" that Jonathan Gold ever composed. A Sichuan noodle explosion ensued. Mians were opened in Houston and Honolulu, and places in between. I recently visited the Rowland Heights location. The entrance is at once alluring and unassuming. Located along Colima in such a high density restaurant area and its storefront being no greater than nine feet wide, it would get lost if its name, "Mian," wasn't posted in blood red lettering on a pagoda style awning. Once through the entrance, you're surprised to see the dining room gradually widen into quite a large space, as if it had been designed by Willy Wonka himself. All the accolades are hung up within the vestibule area. You're finding yourself surrounded with all sorts of non-figurative sculptures, from the walls to ceiling. They're made from papery wood or wooden paper. At your seat lies a placemat with illustrations instructing how to eat mian the Chongqing style. I ordered the Mian special. The bowl quickly arrived. A familiar sight rested within - blanched bok choy, a fried egg, thick hewn slices from a beef terrine lying over a mass of noodles and broth. But the beef and bok choy were left with the refrigerator's hoarfrost on them (not brought to room temperature and certainly not hot). However, the fried egg was at room temperature, likely because it had been sitting out for several hours. The instructional placemat told me that I would receive a serving of noodle water to sip along with the bowl. The noodle water never arrived. Of course, Mian is no mom n' pop shop. They are multi location. They've been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Along with sister restaurant Chengdu Taste, they are a mini empire. Not only have they peaked, but they've become lazy. A very similar - though very different - place is found in San Fran. It is Chongqing Xiao Mian (CXM) on Kearny St in Chinatown. Rather than the designed interior found at Mian, CXM features what you'd imagine finding at a noodle dive. Walls are painted orange, some may call it a pukey orange. A print on one wall is of a tropical resort. Chongqing is of course land locked. Admittedly most things I've ordered from CXM have been middling to bad. Their steamed pork belly with fermented vegetables was fit for the dog's bowl. A lamb ginger noodle soup was pedestrian, as was a bowl of chitterling stew. But none of those other dishes matter. What you will get is the dan dan mian. Noodles with pull swim in a broth that has it all. Umami from toasted sesame seeds and garlic. The aromatics and mala from chili oil. The ground pork mixture adds a stratospheric level of savoriness. I recommend, while you wait for your noodles, order the beef tendon salad. Cold tendon sliced to the thickness of a quarter and dressed with chili oil and cilantro. This place has two world class items and they are still scrappy enough to do them right every time If CXM were in Los Angeles, they would have hit it big already. Alas, they are in Frisco, a town whose food barometer does not value the one dish dive the way we...

• In Short *

From some ex-Z&Y employees comes a restaurant that, well, isn't nearly quite as good.

• In Depth *

Service aside (which is about as inattentive as one would expect from a Chinese restaurant, though actually speaking Chinese seems to help somewhat), let's talk about this noodle shop that I was oh SO looking forward to. My friend and I reluctantly trekked up towards the end of Chinatown, near North Beach, with high hopes that, for once, we'd find a tasty Chinese noodle shop this part of town.

Alas, this was not the case. After waiting a good 15 minutes to even order, we went with the:

Tan Tan Noodles - The noodles themselves weren't particularly noteworthy, lacking the characteristic springiness of quality noodles, and a bit on the overcooked mushier side. Flavor was a bit lacking, even if one were to consider numbing a flavor, as we found it more a tingle than anything.

Wontons with Spicy Chili Oil - A dish that one would think is a bit hard to mess up, until you remember that some places are terrible at making dumplings. Chong Qing isn't quite that bad, but the filling of the wontons left something to be desired, both in flavor, and in texture, with the latter coming off a bit gummy, almost.

Braised Spare Ribs - Photos never lie, right? Well, to be fair, they didn't, because this certainly looked nice. And heck, even the flavor was pretty good, and by far the tastiest of the three things we had. The problem? When you hear braised meat in the context of Chinese food, you think melt-in-your-mouth fall-off-the-bone tender. These were nowhere near that, and probably needed at least another hour or two of braising to hit that point.

Accessibility Info

Venue - Small and and crowded, both with people, and seating arrangements. When the place is empty, getting to your table will be manageable, but when it's packed, people will undoubtedly need to get out of their chairs for you to pass.

Bathroom - Did...

I really liked this place! I'm only taking off one star because I felt like they could have put a bit more effort into the broth.

We came in one rainy evening and it was the perfect thing to eat - hot soupy noodles with spicy notes. The restaurant is pretty well located and easy to find, the set up is pretty standard for a Chinese restaurant too. It was quite clean and tables were kind of close together without feeling very cramped. Service was passable, pretty friendly for a Chinese place.

We got two bowls of noodles to share and an appetizer. The portions here are pretty huge though, so be warned. We were struggling to finish it all but managed to do so because it was so good. Chongqing Xiao Mian - this was really good, I loved the texture of the noodles and how it went with the numbing and spicy broth. I was a little disappointed to realize that it only came with noodles, cabbage and cilantro. I really like noodles and I really like cabbage but I was hoping for a bit more when it comes to toppings. Xiao Guo Mi Xian - we got this to contrast the wheat noodle with the rice noodles. This was also delicious and came with a generous topping of ground pork, preserved vegetables and had a bed of beansprouts below the noodles. I really liked how all the toppings went together with the noodles and spicy broth. Sweet sour pork ribs - good flavor but the meat could have been more tender and less stringy. This was a good contrast to the spicy numbing spices in the noodles as it was nice and sweet. I kind of mopped it all up despite the meat being on the stringy side because I liked the seasonings.

We saw another table order this giant rib noodle so it looks like I need to go back to...