• Xi’an Famous Foods

  88 E. Broadway, nr. Forsyth St.; no phone

  The “Savory Cumin Lamb Hand-Pulled Noodles,” a.k.a. order No. D1, at this new Manhattan branch of the expanding Flushing chainlet, are not the prettiest noodles you’ve ever seen. Clumpy and ragged, they’re shaped like strips of cloth a fugitive from the law might tear into bandages to dress a gunshot wound. And yet, there is no noodle with a richer, chewier, more inviting mouthfeel. That these unwieldy strands are dressed with toothsome shards of lamb and enough cumin and chile oil to send your blood coursing through your veins like rocket fuel only heightens the pleasure. Still, the noodles are the thing, and if you were to dress them with a packet of Heinz ketchup, they’d stand out.

From the 2010 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine