Taste of Xi'an 西安味道 — Restaurant in Seattle

I went with another person for Saturday early dinner. There were plenty of seats available.

Food: we ordered 3 items (pictures attached). The hot and sour soup was more sour and less hot. It was oily, but the acidity kept it very refreshing. The noodles were fun, the peanuts were tasty, and the Sichuan peppercorn was pretty strong. I thought the lamb kebabs were kind of pricey, but they were big, cumin-flavored, and nice and chewy. The chopped pork dish we got had hand-pulled noodles in them, which were good, though perhaps not as good as at Xi'an Noodles. The potato cubes in the dish were slightly undercooked and kind of hard in the centers as a result. The pork was a bit dry. Everything else about it was good. A Xi'an classic that we did not order was paomo, which we were told is the outside of shredded bread in broth.

Service: excellent. All of the servers would often refill water, and the noodle dish was plated into individual bowls for us at our table (which I was told is normal in a place like this when you get noodles).

Decor: the kitchen was a long bar on one side of the restaurant and the dining area took up the rest of the space. The toilet was decently clean. The lighting was bright and cafeteria-like, but cozy. There were a lot of seats and and the tables had enough room for many dishes. The servers stood in front of the kitchen area, which was kind of awkward because it looked like they were just watching us, which detracted from the experience a bit.

Price: I thought the prices were reasonable for what we got, but some Chinese friends told me that it's actually a bit more expensive than you would usually find. All three dishes totalled less than $40, so I thought it wasn't bad.

I would go again to try out some...

I was excited to try this new restaurant, but I left the establishment disappointed and irritated. Taste of Xi'an has poor service and uses questionable practices.

TV displays line the walls inside, and show good looking food. They display the items with names, prices and the company logo. However, when I tried to order a couple of these items, they told me they don't have those things and pointed me to the menu which only features some of the items on the screens. I think this is false advertising, and your display needs to say if some item isn't actually served.

After signing in with the host, I waited with my party for a table. We believe some groups were seated out of order which is frustrating. I noticed another reviewer has had the same issue.

When my table ordered 3 items, 1 item came to our table after just five minutes, which is cool, but we waited 45 minutes for the other 2 items. We had to remind the staff at least twice that we were still waiting for a few simple dishes.

I don't like giving out 1 star reviews, and the food here was decent. However, there were too many other issues during my visit. This has been one of the worst dining experiences in U District.

(I noticed this restaurant has a number of 5 star reviews. Many of these were posted on the same day, from accounts with no other listed reviews. These reviews are also nondescript. I find this...

Update: I have been visiting this restaurant since its opening, and everything is getting better. The dishes are super delicious with good quality, and the wait time is reasonable. I really recommend this place!

—————————— I went there right on the day they were opening. I had to say that they did not prepare for it even though they knew there would be a lot of customers. When we went there, we needed to tell them my name in order to wait for our table. However, it was easy to get confused with names. They eventually mis-pronounced the name and brought the wrong group of people to the table. Also, the people who came after us got their order before us, and they did not improve after we asked them to check on our order. We literately got one of our side dish after we finished the entree. I also think that there is a typo on the menu (B3). I think the Cumin Lamb "Kinney" should be kidney. The food itself is not bad though. There is not a lot of flavor in the fried rice, but the fried noodle is very delicious (I forgot to take the picture but it is N11 on the menu). The cumin BBQ biscuit is also tasty. The snow ice is actually just normal shaved ice. It is not the soft snow shaved ice even though the menu says snow ice. Over all, I think their food is not very expensive and I believe I will go there again. I do hope that they will improve their customer...