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Burwood – Sydney’s coolest neighbourhood for 2025 – is full of excellent Chinese restaurants. This particular restaurant (established in 2017) is known for its banging biang biang noodles (even RecipeTin Eats’ Nagi has posted about them), so I thought I better try them out.
The vibe
The restaurant is relaxed and bustling but elegant – there is polished wooden furniture, blue tiles around the counter, pretty pot plants, and there are elaborate hanging lightshades featuring electric candles. At the back of the restaurant behind a partition you’ll find people sitting at a table hand-pulling noodles. This is the type of cheap eat place that's elegant enough to take a date to. On second thoughts, maybe slurping noodles is not that hot.
The food
As the name suggests, Xi’an Eatery serves food from the Xi'an region in north-western China – which is known as Shaanxi cuisine. Handmade noodles are a big feature of Shaanxi cuisine, so that’s what we order: the signature biang biang noodles; the signature cold noodles; and the signature lamb vermicelli (i.e. too much food for two people!).
The biang biang noodles are just $15.80 for a generous bowl. The noodles are flat but thick and silky – and so long that one un-cut strand could fill a whole bowl. They come topped with stir-fried meat, diced vegetables, oil and chilli, which you mix in to coat the noodles with glossy flavour. It's fun and messy and delicious. Nagi was right.
We also order the lamb vermicelli soup (yang rou pao mo), a bowl of lamb broth with lamb, rice noodles, nutmeg, fresh herbs, pickled garlic and circles of layered flatbread for dipping. The lamb stock is very strong in flavour – a bit too lamby for my tastes – but that’s obviously what other people love about it.
The biggest (good) surprise for me is the cold noodles, which come in a pool of flavour-packed oil and topped with dry chilli, which you mix through the noodles. Despite only having a few ingredients, including sliced cucumber, it's moreish.
The drinks
Drinks are not a big focus here – expect the standard offerings like Chinese tea, milky tea, soy milk, Calpis (a Japanese cultured milk drink that’s popular around Asia) and watermelon juice.
Time Out tip
We ate a late lunch (2pm on a weekday) but if you’re planning to come for dinner, arrive early, because those who know Burwood know that it’s a busy suburb, and this is a popular place. If you can’t get in, there’s always Burwood Chinatown down the road – and the Night Markets from Thursday to Sunday, 5-10pm.
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