Xian Cuisine - Richmond

This is my first time to the “Richmond Public Market”, and maybe my last given how troublesome parking was…. The narrow lanes, tight stalls, and reckless driving makes the trouble hardly worth it. And that’s a shame because the food from their food court is some of the most authentic, and our lunch spot is well known in the community as having some of the best noodles in the city. Delicious noodles in a time where instagram is littered with #noodlepulls, and individuals are striving to find the best bowl in the city.

Chinese cuisine is highly varied, with each region offering unique takes on their culture and food. There are eight regional Chinese cuisines that distinguish themselves by their traditional cooking methods, such as braising, sautéing, stir-frying, steaming, and stewing. Recently, new types of Chinese cuisine have been appearing in the food scene, adding to the excitement of discovering different flavors beyond the usual dim sum or Hong Kong-style dishes.

So it seems that fresh hand pulled noodles and meat burgers are actually specialties in the city of Xi'An as well as at this stall upstairs in Richmond Public Market. I have often gravitated to the man pulling the noodles and passed by the steam tables of deep fried this and that at other stalls in the market and i don't regret it. On this visit, I tried the Pork Burgers 2 for $9) which were nicely chewy buns, no condiments that I am aware of and filled with tasty tender pork. Very nice. I ordered Beef Noodle Soup also $9) to go for my partner who was working at the time. A bit of a problem is that the noodles absorbed all the stock by the time the soup got to her. Still tasty...just not soup. My mistake not theirs. The man behind the noodles is all business which is not a bad thing as everything seems to be prepared to order. This stall is on Richmond's Dumpling Trail so I will be back for that!

Definitely a hole in the wall type of place. They make their noodles fresh (you can watch the chef make the noodles for your dish right after you order! . It makes all the difference in some of these very simple but tasty dishes. We had the number 8 (pork with chili oil on pulled noodles which was a great balance of spicy, flavorful and bright. The noodles were chewy and thick, catching all the sauce from the truly delicious pork. The chili oil, while spicy, is not overly spicy.. it can leave the dish a little oily though.<br/ <br/ We also had the green onion cake. Unfortunately, while tasty, lacked enough green onions. It tasted mostly like man tao with some slight onion flavor. Tasted really good dipped in the chili oil and pork juices left over from the noodles though! All in all, great noodles for your money! Cost us only 10$ and one dish was enough for two people.

Tried their spicy wontons and special cold noodle. They were both yummy. Considering price and portion, it was worth it. The wontons were not too spicy that my mouth burned, which was good. The special cold noodle, I think had similar sauce to the spicy wontons. But it wasn't very spicy either. It was quite refreshing. It had plenty of beansprouts and cucumber. There were also little pieces of something that I don't know the name of. It was soft and chewy. At first I thought it was tofu skin, but I don't think that's right (if anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'd like to know! . The noodles were thick, but chewy and tender. It was my favourite part. I'd come back for those noodles again.