西安名吃 at NYC

choi

Sade Strehlke, The Emperors of Xian; After an unexpected visit from Anthony Bourdain seven years ago, Jason Wang transformed his father's small court eatery in Flushing, Queens, ito a citywide food phenomenon. Wall Street Joutnal Magazinem Jan 25, 2015.
www.wsj.com/articles/anthony-bou ... us-foods-1421245458

Note:
(a)
(i) Xian Famous Food  西安名吃
xianfoods.com/
(1) locations: six in Manhattan, two each in Queens and Brooklyn)
(ii) Jason Wang  王梦迪 (Now 26, he immigrated to US at 8.)

(b) "Wang, who is now 26, has expanded Xi’an Famous Foods into a mini empire. This month, he opens its 10th location, adjacent to the Empire State Building. The restaurant is the largest Xi’an to date, at almost 2,000 square feet, and boasts two open kitchens, a second floor and a skylight. It joins[, among nine other Xian eateries of his,] Biang!, a more formal version of the eatery, also in Queens."
(i) "Biang! Restaurant - A Finer Xi'an Famous Foods Experience ..."
www.biang-nyc.com/
(ii) biangbiang noodle
sen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biangbiang_noodles

(c) "He [Bourdain] recommended Xi’an Famous Foods for a Chase Sapphire commercial"

Chase Sapphire Rewards Credit Card | Chase.com
creditcards.chase.com/sapphire
(d) "Wang emigrated from [Xian] when he was 8. Unlike most Chinese food Americans eat—typically from southern coastal regions—dishes from Xi’an, at the mouth of the Silk Road, are spiked with Middle Eastern flavors. David Shi [Jason Wang's father], convinced that non-native palates wouldn’t go for his hometown cuisine, first franchised a bubble-tea shop in 2005. 'It wasn’t too successful,' says Wang, so he tried different things to make some extra money, and started selling noodles and burgers on the side.' Soon, visitors from all over the city were forming long lines for his cold-skinned noodles 凉皮, a dish that takes over two days to make, and Shi stopped selling tea."

(e) "'Any great entrepreneur tells you what you want before you know you want it,' he adds, comparing Wang to chefs like David Chang and Mario Batali, who, respectively, brought ramen and ravioli stuffed with brains into the American food consciousness."
(i) About. Mario Batali, undated
www.mariobatali.com/about/
("10 restaurants in New York • 4 restaurants in Las Vegas • 4 restaurants in California • 2 restaurants in Singapore • 2 Italian markets in New York • 1 Italian market in Chicago • 1 restaurant in Connecticut • 1 restaurant in Hong Kong, and counting…")
(ii) Grandma's Calves Brain Ravioli. Mario Batali, undated (a video clip about how to make it).
www.mariobatali.com/videos/grandmas-calves-brain-ravioli/

* WARNING: Chinese and Taiwanese (few; I knew of nobody who ate it when I was there--except tiny fish brains; Cantonese are rumored to eat money brain, served while the monkey is alive, but our small clan do not eat brains or testicles--or cats, rats) eat brains. From the viewpoint of a biologist (which I was), the practice is nonsense: it is all fat (no muscle, a fact everybody knows).

(f) "All of Xi’an’s dishes are $10 or under. Even with the low prices, the current midtown location at East 45th Street grosses $1.4 million annually, and when visiting almost any location, you can expect a wait."
(g) “I can have beef rendang”

rendang
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendang
(Meat is "slowly cooked in coconut milk and [a paste of mixed] spices [then] The cooking process changes from boiling to frying as the liquid evaporates")