西安手工面 Wen Hui Noodle Hours

🇨🇳 SHAANXI, CHINA / This small restaurant is home to what you might find sitting down at a family-run place in Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi Province.

🇨🇳 CHINA (Shaanxi)
📍 644 W. Garvey Avenue,
Monterey Park, San Gabriel Valley
🅿️ Small plaza lot
🥤 No Alcohol
🌱 Vegetarian Friendly

📸 All photos by Jared Cohee
for Eat the World Los Angeles

When Wen Hui Noodle Hours opened up right at the tail end of 2021, it was the third restaurant to open in the same space since the pandemic had begun. Thankfully the Shaanxi hits and homemade noodles have become enough of a draw that the operation has thrived in its small plaza in Monterey Park near the big intersection of Garvey and Atlantic.

While the English name is a bit of a puzzler, the five Chinese characters (西安手工面) are a much more simple representation of what you find inside: Xi’an handmade noodles. Inside the restaurant, English is not used, so do your ordering homework before arriving and expect not to be able to ask questions if you do not speak their language. There are rudimentary translations on the menu and even better pictures with titles on the walls to help you, so even if you stumble in wide-eyed you are bound to have a delicious meal.

When sitting down at a Xi’an specialist, it is hard not to turn your attention to roujiamo 肉夹馍 ($6.99, above). In Shaanxi, the city streets of which this hand-held sandwich-type contraption hails from, the most common meat to stuff inside is pork. Reading a cast of mostly subpar reviews of this meat here at Wen Hui Noodle Hours, the table went instead for the version with spicy cumin lamb. Lamb is an important part of meals in the province, and the restaurant takes much care to make the version in their roujiamo full of so many flavors.

One of the world’s oldest sandwiches, this type of wheat flour bread has been being made since since the Qin Dynasty in 221-206 B.C. It is unclear when meats started being stuffed inside the bread, but since those cooking styles are even older it is probably not long afterwards.

While neighboring Shanxi is famous for their production of a variety of vinegars, Shaanxi is no stranger to them even if it is more on the consumption side. To clear your palate between meat and carb-loaded bites full of breads and noodles, make sure to include the shredded potato in vinegar sauce 醋溜土豆丝 ($9.99, above) as part of an order.

Another must order for a Shaanxi meal is at least one bowl of biang biang noodles, or youpo chemian 油泼扯面. These long ribbons are wide and long enough to be a thin belt. If you go to the bathroom during your meal it requires a trip through the kitchen and you can see the mixer preparing the dough to later be hand-pulled (and also meet the couple cooking everything). For much of history, the dish was known as peasant food, noodles made thick because people had no time to make them thinner. Now the view is less class-based, as the large Shaanxi-style noodles are eaten around China and the world.

A classic way to enjoy these is with a two or three topping spicy noodle with pepper oil 油泼三样 ($13.99, above). No matter how you eat them, possibly with cumin lamb or Qishan saozi style, the chew and texture are both just right. It may seem daunting to pull the (very!) long noodles out of the bowl for sharing, so enjoy this order on your own and slurp away.

The three toppings in the dish above are tomato and egg (counted as one), potato, and meat. Feel free to sample these, but the dish is “activated” once you mix everything together. This releases all the heat from the freshly made noodles and the softly spicy sauces which collect at the bottom of the bowl.

For another unique taste of Shaanxi, include the pita bread soaked in lamb soup 羊肉泡馍 ($14.99, above) in your meal. This bread is chopped up into dozens of cubes which almost feel like pasta, while a few hunks of lamb meat and tofu swim nearby. The lamb is especially prevalent in the broth though, which is full of flavor. There is good reason that this dish is the very first item listed on their extensive menu.

If it is actual pasta you are craving, try the braised Xi’an style pasta, which shows up as stewed hemp food 烩麻食 ($12.99, below) on the menu. These little folded delights are in a bright orange bowl full of flavors, meat, tofu, and vegetables. If you come in September, you might be wishing it were raining outside and chilly, but even in summer this is excellent.