Shaanxi fare right at home in Mesa
It’s nice to be on trend for a change. Not to place a premium on keeping up with the Joneses. The coasts aren’t meaningful yardsticks for measuring Arizona’s place in the culinary world. And 115-degree temps aren’t conducive to lines around the block for a taste of the latest hotness, anyway.
Heat is a daily reality around these parts, not something to fetishize.
Still, given the usual three to five years it takes for food trends to meander their way through the desert en route to the Valley, it’s refreshing to be ahead of the game for once. While the national food media is suddenly alight with the buzz of discovering Shaanxi cuisine, here we are with a rare opportunity to strike a blasé tone and say “That? Oh, yeah, we’ve been eating that for years.” Three years, to be precise.
Summer 2015 is when Noel Cheng and Changhai Huang converted House of Egg Roll — Chandler’s decrepit Canto-American joint with a cringeworthy name — into a white-hot dining spot that featured the real cuisine of northwestern China. After multiple relaunches and a new set of owners, the buzz surrounding House of Egg Roll quickly moved on. But for Cheng and Huang, it was just a stepping stone.
Their sophomore effort, Shaanxi Garden, doesn’t hum with the same kind of titillating in-the-know glam. But it’s a superior restaurant in every other sense.
Nestled into Mesa’s Asian market district, Shaanxi Garden is about 10 miles up the road, even if the terracotta warriors that flank the front door do their best to make you feel like it’s 7,000.
House of Egg Roll was a guerilla operation built on rickety benches and folding tables. But Shaanxi Garden is the
picture of spit and polish, a large, wellappointed space that’s aiming for a more refined vibe. And if the dark wood and gentle lighting don’t do the trick, a guzheng probably will. With live performances on the weekends, the sound of the stringed instrument is synonymous with China for Westerners.
Indeed, there’s more than a little bit of cultural outreach at work here. While Arizona State University students from China are undoubtedly Shaanxi Garden’s bread and butter, here is a restaurant that’s making a concerted effort to expand the reach of Shaanxi cuisine in the Valley beyond homesick expats.
Take the service. Those who frequent traditional Chinese restaurants are familiar with the cultural differences when it comes to service conventions at casual restaurants. But diners more accustomed to the norms of white-bread America will likely find the level of attention at Shaanxi Garden closer to their liking.
Secret menu? It doesn’t exist. There’s one menu for all, featuring both Chinese characters and clear translations, not to mention an abundance of pictures and servers happy to explain. There’s also an obligatory page of Americanized fare, but that’s not why you’re here.
Huang and chef Jiang Niu, who both hail from Shaanxi, have assembled a bold collection of dishes from their home province.
Shaanxi starters
Shaanxi, home to the ancient capital of Xi’an, is considered part of northwestern China, though that’s more a matter of historical convention than geography. Smack dab in the center of the country’s modern borders, Shaanxi shares characteristics with neighboring regions like Sichuan, Chongqing and Inner Mongolia. Its cuisine is typified by hearty dishes, less rice and more wheat, plenty of lamb and cumin, the sharp combination of chiles, and Sichuan pepper frequently offset by a good deal of vinegar and — perhaps above all — noodles.
Some cool ones are a good start. Slippery, wheat-based liang pi ($6.89), translated as “skin noodles” for their almost gelatinous texture, are lightly dressed in vinegar and chile oil, and tossed with a spare handful of bean sprouts and slivered celery.
Cold starters include typical renditions of classics like slivered pig ears, cucumbers and beef tripe ($8.89 for three items). On the hot end of the spectrum, the Shaanxi special crispy chicken ($11.89) is a standout, a core of tender in a light, papery fried crust — almost like tempura without the crags. It’s served with two dips but best plunked in the fragrant dry spice mix rather than the dubious sweet sour sauce, a candy apple interloper that feels like an escapee from the Americanized menu.
A handful of the barbecue items from House of Egg Roll remain, including the always excellent lamb skewers ($9.25), heavy with cumin and chiles and unafraid to leave some fat on the meat to produce a crispy, juicy sizzle. And the Shaanxi-style burgers ($5.25) have leveled up since the restaurant’s previous incarnation. Pucks of Shaanxi-style bread are griddled to a golden crisp and stuffed with stewed pork, cumin lamb or — my favorite — a fiery spicy pork filling.
Thick and delicately textured Mount Qi noodles ($11.89) swim in a hot sour broth; and lo mein is plied with cumin and lamb ($12.89). But the signature noodles — both of the restaurant and Shaanxi province — are the biang biang noodles, served in a panoply of styles.
Biang biang noodles
The Chinese character, “biang,” rolls millennia of Shaanxi history and mythology into a tight block of 57 strokes, portrayed in white neon as you enter the restaurant. Named for the sound the dough makes when it’s slapped on the counter as they’re made, biang biang noodles are sustenance and symbol in Shaanxi.
In simple practice, however, biang biang are killer noodles. Long, thick and about an inch wide — shaped like a belt — they’re resilient, chewy, they take to all manner of preparation and Shaanxi Garden slings plenty.
The classic house biang biang noodles ($11.89) are the meaty heart of the menu, simply topped with a splash of lightly vinegared broth, a robust blend of diced vegetables and sweetly stewed pork. A first bite might come across as a tad frumpy next to some of the flashier offerings, but spend a little time with the dish and it’ll reach out to give you a warm, gentle hug.
The dip noodles in garlic sauce ($9.25), cut from the same dough, are
close cousins with a little more zip. Served almost naked (the better to appreciate their form), a bowl comes with a punchy sidecar of garlic and spice — a tart and pungent chile oil to dab or dunk as you prefer.
A mountainous platter of stewed chicken ($21.89) with potatoes and chiles, rich and heavily spiced, adorned almost every table at the old location. Now, it’s been supplemented with the addition of biang biang noodles, a thick tangle of them lurking just below the surface.
This is but a sampling of the biang biang options, and taken on their own, they’d be enough to make this restaurant a destination. But more Shaanxi specialties abound.
Silky soups and stews
I’m not sure any culinary tradition in the world can match China for broths. Shaanxi Garden turns some excellent specimens into an array of soups and stews.
Start with one of the lighter offerings. Fresh Encounters in Tang Dynasty ($15.89) sounds like it’s selling something other than a bowl of soup, but make it this good and you can call it whatever you want. Subtle and silky, it’s piled with pork, tofu and loads of greens.
For a real example of what a Chinese soupsmith can do, give the silkie chicken broth ($10.89) a try. Made with intensely flavored black chicken, spiced with ginseng and sweetened with Chinese dates, it walks the line between meal and medicine, and it’s fabulously complex.
Shaanxi bread makes another appearance as chewy “noodle nuggets” in vegetable soup ($11.89), reminiscent of the tomato soup popular at the old location but changed here into something lighter and more balanced.
Those who sampled the menu at House of Egg Roll will also remember the lamb, and lamb lovers will be pleased.
An abundance of lamb
The spicy and sour lamb dumplings ($12.89) lean more sour than spicy, and that’s no complaint. The broth is light and spiked with black vinegar, but the true star is the jumble of dumplings, thick and chewy and bursting with ground lamb.
Squeamish diners will skip right past the griddle-cooked lamb spine ($15.89), and every one of them will be making a mistake. Here, it’s a rich stew redolent with lamb’s gentle gaminess, packed with vegetables and fragrant aromatics.
Double flavors flying lamb ($16.89) offers two complementary stir-fry dishes: one piled with green chiles and one laced with cilantro. But a more minimal approach is the lamb neck ($23.89), a tray of sizzling roasted meat pulled tableside and served with an assortment of condiments and garnishes. Both dishes are meant to be wrapped and eaten by hand, but so much care goes into the rest of the menu that the choice of packaged flour tortillas is a puzzling misstep, particularly in a town that knows its tortillas.
The hits keep coming
A stumble or two notwithstanding, the hits keep coming, word count be damned. Four Bowls of Happiness ($18.89) is aptly named, a collection of four braised home-style dishes brimming with soul and serenity. The iron shovel beef tongue ($16.89) takes the opposite tack, tender slivers of meat buried under a mound of green chiles so big that the shovelhead serving piece isn’t just appropriate but necessary. And sweet umami chasers will lose their minds over the honey spare ribs ($15.89), a sticky lot that’s deeply lacquered and holds enough flavor for a dish thrice its size.
And yet, piles of noodles, flashy service pieces and whimsical names aside, it’s the unassuming vegetables that may be the quickest window into the quality of the kitchen.
As is often the case at Chinese restaurants worth their salt, dishes like the hand-wrapped cabbage ($7.89) or dried green beans ($8.89) roll their eyes, heave a sigh and then quietly steal the show in workmanlike fashion. Always the last thing you think to order and always one of the best things on the table.
At Shaanxi Garden, they’re in good company.