Chin Xi’an Style Restaurant is located in the Princess Shopping Center in the same location as BenGong’s Tea. When you go inside, it has the slight feel of a food hall except it’s just Chin Xi’an and Bengong’s Tea.
I’m a big fan of Xi’an style food, especially the thick spicy hand ripped noodles, and it was exciting to find out a new place in Ellicott City was offering it.
We visited a few weeks ago (January 5th) and they had just been open for a short time, so there were some signs that they were still finding their footing. It wasn’t really clear if we were supposed to order at the counter or sit down first but were assured that we should sit.
The menu can be a little confusing (especially the Family Set and Popular Combo section) but give yourself a little time and it’ll start to make sense.
We started with Sweet Heat Cabbage (the portion was bigger, I just forgot to take a photo before we started eating!):
The reason we wanted to go was for the Hand Ripped Noodles and they were fantastic.
They had a special where you could get three different types onto one plate, so we opted for that.
We went with Egg & Tomato (top), Pork “Zha Jiang” Bean Sauce (lower left), and Spicy Hot-Oil Seared (right). All of the flavors were amazing but one thing we didn’t realize is that with noodles, it’s hard to keep the flavors separate. They plate the noodles and then top it with the sauce, so it got a bit challenging.
We also got a beef noodle soup that wasn’t on the menu (yet?):
It was a very light, very clean broth with thick hand-ripped noodles and thin slices of beef. It was delicious but you have to realize the style isn’t like a Taiwanese beef noodle soup that is a bit heavier.
Lastly, because it was a Xi’an place, we had to get Murgers (even though we already had plenty of food). Murgers are essentially sandwich pockets and the sandwich has meat and other vegetables packed inside. It’s quite good.
The top one was the Spicy Cumin Lamb Murger and it’s sitting on top of a 12-Hours Stewed Pork Murger. Both were good though the 12-Hours Stewed Pork Murger was a bit on the oily side. We didn’t really eat much of these because the noodles were so filling.
We really enjoyed the food a lot. There were a little minor hiccups here and there (no real soup spoons) but I suspect those will get sorted out pretty quickly.
If you want some hand ripped noodles, head on over!