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| - The Skinny: pretty great Mongolian beef pancake, soup noodles and Zha Jiang noodles; their stir-fried dishes(served over noodles or rice) are not quite as good (3.5), service is pretty great and prompt (FYI, we usually hit this place around 11:30 am) although the male server is the only one who speaks fluent English (4), value: for the serving size and taste, prices for this quality is pretty great (3.5 bump up to 4).
We stopped by a few times this week for lunch and we're able to try several menu items. Service is fast and friendly for a Chinese place. Seating is also comfortable.
If you go, you need to try their Mongolian beef pancake. The wrapper is appropriately thin and crispy, while the filling was lusciously juicy from the combination of veggies and beef. The vegetable version is also quite tasty with the vermicelli, tofu, leek combo. We also tried the chicken mushroom pancake (it didn't have that much mushroom flavor and I couldn't see any black mushrooms mixed in, texturally also tasted more like ground chicken thigh meat than breast meat) which was okay but flavor wise was a bit weaker than the beef/vegetable version. Pancakes are $5 for 2 and served with some yummy sweet marinated daikon/carrot pickles.
We tried both the pork pan fried dumplings and the pork wonton in chili oil. For me, the pork dumpling skin was a bit too thick and lacked the juiciness of the above mentioned pancakes. I would recommend the aforementioned pancakes over the dumplings for sure. The pork wonton were nothing special - there was minimal filling in each wrapper and the flavor just wasn't there. Skip this dish.
Their entrees consist of soup noodles or braised/stir-fried dishes served on top of rice/Shanxi knife cut noodles.
We tried the Lau Zhou beef noodle soup, the shanxi beef noodle soup, the stir-fried pork and mushroom over noodles, the chicken/eggplant over noodles, the pork/green bean lo-mein and the homemade zha jeung mien ($8/dish)
Their strong points are not the stir-fried dishes. Both the pork/mushroom dish and chicken/eggplant dish were both too sweet for my tastes, had too much sauce, and didn't have enough wok hai. I probably would not order these again. We also tried their pork and green bean lo-mein. The pork was pretty well braised and fell apart in your mouth. But again I found it a tad sweet for me. This we may or may not order again.
Where they shine is the beef soup noodles. The braised beef noodle soup hits the spot with just the right combination of star anise, citrus peel and pepper. The pickles add that last bit of sourness to balance out the dish. Personally I would recommend the Shanxi knife cut noodles over the Lan Zhou noodles. When I had the Lan Zhou noodles, they didn't seem to be hand pulled but were good nonetheless. The Shanxi knife cut tasted freshly made and gives this dish the edge over the thinner Lan Zhou.
Homemade zha jiang mien was pretty good with the right amount of sweet/savory flavors and sported real hand pulled noodles when I had this. This is a great summer dish with the mixed vegetables it comes with.
The food here is solid overall and prices are very reasonable for a good tuck in. The space is small, and I can see how this place may fill up quickly during peak times. The servers were pretty good for a Chinese joint when we went although only the male server seems to speak fluent English. (3.5 star bump up to 4 starred review)
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