Xian Famous Foods (西安名吃）Authentic Chinese Restuarant stand NY East Village Chinatown

Multiple Locations:
Manhattan – East Village
81 St. Mark’s Place
New York, NY 10003

Manhattan – Chinatown
88 East Broadway #106
New York, NY 10002

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

My friend Katie and her husband will be moving to Beijing in about 6 months (yeah, totally jealous) and arranged a lunch meeting at Xian Famous Foods in the East Village. It’s a great place to sample some really authentic Chinese dishes and we had a chance to have some fun practicing a little Mandarin too! If you haven’t ever been to XiAn, 2 things you should note: 1) although the menu can be quite intimidating (check out the wall sized picture menu outside the restaurant), you can’t go wrong as everything is really really good, and 2) there’s no seating at the Chinatown location and only a few chairs and tables in the East Village location.

On point #2, it actually worked out and we were able to squat out 75% of the restaurant over the course of our meal for all our friends. My favorites are the B2 Savory Cumin Lamb Burger served in a thick hearty bread roll (or D1 over noodles) D4 Stewed Pork Hand Pulled Noodles. Having lived in China for a few years, I would say the dishes here at Xian Famous Foods are pretty much the closest you’ll get to street food in China. The prices are also quite reasonable. If you are vegetarian, there are actually a few dishes that qualify such as D5 Mt Qi Vegetables Hand Pulled Noodles (also available as a soup D5-S), and D8 ( Hot Oil Seared Vegetables over Noodles). Although XiAn Famous Foods can be kind of a hipster scene at times, definitely check it out!!