Went to this restaurant with PS and R yesterday, the plan was to go to Chilli's the Dosa restaurant -- our second attempt in three weeks -- but it was closed, as it is always on Mondays. How random, that every time we want to go, it happens to be close. So everybody independently decided that the restaurant across the street, Taste of Xi'an would be ideal, and it was funny when we came to a unanimous agreement without previously discussing the place.
This is a modern Chinese eatery. What that means is: I imagine restaurants of this kind are quite common in China, the medium-casual type of restaurant that doesn't have table service but is bussed by servers. No menus, no cash. You scan their online menu, order there, they will deliver your order to the table, and on your way out you pay at the counter by showing your receipt and tapping on the device. I'm making such a big fuss out of how it works because I like it so much, and also as an explanation of what 'modern chinese' means to me.
The ambiance is quite nice, nicer than one would imagine from such a 'casual' place. The place certainly feels legit: we were clearly the only non-Asian (or possibly non-Chinese) entirely people in there. Their menu was extensive and modern...so modern that they had Chonqing chicken, which rose to fame a year or two ago, prominently featured on the menu.
I had a mapo tofu with white rice, tea egg (yum) and a cheap sweet and sour soup. The prices were quite reasonable. The rest of the team had deep fried 'popcorn chicken' item, a fried rice item, and a chicken sattay item, and we were all full to the brim. The tofu was too much, I brought it home. All told, including tips and taxes I paid about $75. Which I was very happy about, because despite being on the 'higher' side of 'casual' restaurants, the food was good, the service was nothing worth complaining about, the vibe was awesome, and we got to spend a couple of hours. It's the sort of place I wouldn't mind going on a Friday or saturday evening, staying for hours ordering food and drinking. You don't even care you're spending so much because everything is so goshdarned good!
Highly, highly recommend this restaurant, just to try once, if nothing else. 9 stars out of ten. I realize I've been getting generous with my rating system but so be it, it's not an objective never-changing universal constant, it's a reflection of me and how I feel about the world, and if a decent chinese restaurant with good food and decent price gets top marks, that reflects not on me but also on how I feel about the food scene here.
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