Welcome to Stall 36 aka Xi'an Famous Foods, located in the Golden Shopping Mall at 41-28 Main Street, lower level. The stall is diagonal and to the right from Lanzhou Noodles and next to House of Xie. If you can't identify the stall by the photos above, its also easy to identify with the laminated photos of their foods that is located in the front of their stall.
We only ordered one food item from this stall and tried some of their drinks. We only tried one because this was the first stall we tried and wanted to save room for the others. The stall offered a variety of dishes made with lamb, so we selected the spicy lamb burger to test their lamb. We also selected the lamb because the other food stalls did not offer this meat.
Spicy Lamb Burger for $2.50. The sandwich was simple -- lamb, jalapeno and some other herbs. Every bite was savory and spicy, which for me was a bit too spicy, but the taste was so pleasant that I found myself wanting more -- regardless of the consequences. Bite two, now my mouth was sort of in flames - but it was worth the consequences. The meat was tender to slightly rough, but to my pleasant surprise, the lamb was not like the sliced up meat you find at some of the food carts in Manhattan (previously blogged), but true cubes of meats. You could taste the lamb, which was not game-y in any sense. The bread didn't add much flavor to the sandwich, but it did add a nice crunch to every bite. Overall, the sandwich was delicious! Everything the name had, it offered - Spicy Lamb Burger. (note: my tolerance for spicy foods are low)
We also tried the Honey Red Ginseng drink here ... and for some reason I thought it was Honey with Ginger... so you can imagine once I had the taste in my mouth -- my immediate reaction was to spit it out -- but I didn't. Yeah, I was not a fan, but my friend Julie was.For more info on their menu, check out their website at www.xianfoods.com (yes, its one of the only places that has a website!) -- there are plenty of photos and other helpful information about Xi'an Famous Foods.
Overall, all three of us (Michael, Julie and me), enjoyed this sandwich and would order it again (had it not been for the other stalls we wanted to visit!).
Interesting Tidbit:
- Anthony Bourdain has visited this stall before and you will see a photo of him there
- If you walk into the stall, there is a picture of a female body builder and a picture of the same lady in normal clothes (if you see this, you'll likely have a similar reaction - "WOAH, that can't be all hidden in that tiny lady's body!")
- Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province in China. Tourists visit this area to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and is also part of the Silk Road. Food from Xi'an is generally spicy.
- According to wikipedia, Ginseng's traditional uses are for medicinal purposes - including increasing one's libido, increases resistance to stress, and helps with diabetes II.
2 comments:
To: Xi'an Famous Foods
Their attitudes are getting worse and worse. They don't care about customers anymore. Their new boss Jason said in person that he doesn't care about losing one client like me. Honestly, I have been client of this store for a long time since his father start this store in Flushing. His father is humorous and gentle. But he is totally opposite. He will Ruin his father's business one day or even sooner. Today, I only ask him to not add spice but sugar in the Tofu, which is very reasonable and simple. He refused. I said I have already ordered spicy dish here and don't want to have another spicy one. He again refused. I as a customer, have been rejected by him twice. He even told me to buy it somewhere else and I don't necessarily need to eat in their store. What a rude attitude. I am not a person who like arguments. I only feel as a customer for this store for a long time, my feelings have been hurt. I said I need to talk to his father. He said he will dial the number right away and he won't answer any way. He also said I can sent email but it is him who responsible for the emails. What he want to say is ask me to get off, and he didn't care about me as a client.Jason, you know, you will ruin your father's business. Although you can speak English fluently, you are nothing and nothing compared to your father. Remember, it is your father who start this business very hard, and build a good relationship to other clients. You are rude to me today, and I believe you will be mad to other clients another day. You will see how you ruin the business day by day. I have to say, you are the worst boss I have ever seen.
I will never again go to your store and I will talk to my other friends and relatives and everyone I know how you are rude to clients only because your business is Ok now.
Jason, if you do care about your business. I need your apology publicly on your website. I know as one single customer. You even don’t care about my complaints. But I do believe if you continue to be like this, more and more people will hate the way you run business, and won’t go to you store. You know, if you were not being rude to me this morning, I could bring other clients come. I was so disappointed how your father can let you be the boss. All those years sweats and tears. If your father see what you have done today, he will get disappointed too. You said I am ignorant and stupid. How could you look down upon others like this. Yes, I admit my English is not as fluent as you, but I do understand the meaning of words that you were cursing me. I will continue talk to all my friends not go to your store if you don’t apologize to me. At first, I decided do nothing and let this go. Then I think instead of doing nothing and getting angry I will do something to criticize you. You are wrong? Jason? and you are a horrible boss.
I am writing to urge the public not to go to Xian Famous Foods on Bayard Street in Chinatown. The young owner there has a habit to pick fights with customers and to demand customers to leave his store. You do not usually hear stories that a business owner would kick customers out. The only exceptions are that the customer is a drunk, or a psycho, or is disturbing other customers. His food gets some good reviews and his ego gets shot up to the roof. However, it doesn't give him the rights to insult and disrespect customers. After reading some reviews, I realized that I was not the only one mistreated by him. I wish the others could speak up and tell their stories.
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