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| - I'm obsessed with Chinese Magic Noodle House. I have to admit, after growing up in Beijing and finding only decent hand-pulled noodle restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, I didn't have high hopes for Chinese food in the Phoenix area. Admittedly Chandler is a half hour's drive away, but I've happily made the trek three times in the past couple of weeks, and I definitely haven't been disappointed.
Located in a small strip mall, the restaurant is simple yet functional. The furniture may be a bit dated, but the food more than makes up for that. There is a little window where one of the cooks is hand-pulling large hunks of dough for the noodles, and that reminds me so much of similar displays in Beijing.
There are several options for which kinds of noodles customers would prefer, but I highly recommend the thick hand-pulled noodles for almost every dish. The noodles here are amazing, and I'm especially a fan of the noodle soups. The beef noodle soup is probably my favorite, followed by the ox tail noodle soup, dry tossed noodles with ground pork, and XO sautéed noodles with beef.
Beef noodle soup:
This is a heavier soy sauce based noodle soup with large chunks of tender beef. I like that the soup is slightly saltier to allow for the flavor to permeate through the noodles, but not so salty that the broth is undrinkable. This is hands down my favorite preparation for the thick hand-cut noodles.
Ox tail noodle soup:
This is a much lighter noodle soup when compared to the beef noodle soup, as the ox tail is sliced into thin pieces and the broth is clear. I thought that some of the cook on the ox tail was uneven, as there were pieces which were overly chewy and others that were tender. A good choice for when I'm hoping for a lighter broth, but I felt that the beef noodle soup was a hard one to beat.
Dry noodles with ground pork:
This was a decently good dish, although the lettuce strips on the bottom instead of cucumber strips were a bit unconventional. The thicker noodles can be harder to navigate in this version, but they were still tasty. I could have used a bit more sauce, but the ground pork was seasoned well and paired nicely with the fragrant noodles.
Sautéed noodles with beef and XO sauce:
I was so impressed that the thick noodles weren't overlooked or undercooked in this dish, as I've had so many versions where the noodles were mushy and falling apart. The XO sauce was a bit heavy for my taste, but I could tell that the wok breath was fragrant and ingredients timed well. This was a far step up from the stir-fried noodles at Cherryblossom Cafe in Phoenix.
Potstickers:
These were huuuuge! I don't know if I've seen potstickers this big, and truthfully they were more of dumplings than anything else. I thought that with such thick wrappers and hand-made, these would probably have been better if prepared in the traditional boiling of dumplings; it's just hard to steam such large portions adequately through pan-frying. The flavor was still good, but I'd pick noodles over these potstickers without hesitation.
I'll be back soon!
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