Never Heard of It is a series about the places that shape how this city eats — corner spots, bakeries, strip mall dining rooms, and family-run kitchens that rarely make the glossy lists but have always mattered. These are stories about more than food. Each entry looks at how history, migration, and shifting neighbourhoods show up on the plate, offering a glimpse into the everyday culture that builds a city from the ground up.

Xi’an Flavor is located inside Richmond’s Central at Garden City, a strip mall anchored by Walmart on one end and The Brick on the other. Recently, it made the Chinese Restaurant Awards’ Elite 30 Canada list – a rare national recognition for a strip-mall restaurant. The location feels fitting for Xi’an Flavor, though. Richmond’s plazas – where regional cuisines from across China coexist just a few doors apart – are the true map of the Chinese diaspora here.

The menu at Xi’an Flavor offers a wide variety of dishes, including Liang Pi Noodles (translucent wheat starch strips served cold in vinegar sauce); Rou Jia Mo (Xi’an’s version of a hamburger consisting of crisp-edged bread stuffed with shredded pork); and Hand-Grasped Lamb Ribs – fatty and aromatic, to be dipped in chilli sauce and eaten with your bare hands. And then there are the Biang Biang Noodles – Xi’an Flavor’s version are too wide for a polite mouthful; they sprawl across the bowl, slick with chilli oil, and tangled with egg, potato and green onion. (Even the Chinese character for biang is excessive — nearly sixty brush strokes; the most in the Chinese written language.)

Biangbiang noodles hail from Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, often credited as the birthplace of noodles. Once the imperial seat and starting point of the Silk Road, Xi’an sent silk, tea and ceramics outward, while bringing back lamb, spices and ideas. These exchanges are reflected in the food: featuring cumin and chilli from the west, and vinegar and wheat from the north, Xi’an cooking is nutritionally dense and simple, meant to feed travellers and workers, rather than courtiers.

Beyond working-class staples, Xi’an Flavor also serves a selection of more luxurious options, like Braised Sea Cucumber with Tendon; Abalone served several ways; and its award-winning Signature Dish, Chicken with Green Sichuan Pepper. These dishes blur the line between regional and banquet cuisine, highlighting the transformation of Shaanxi Province as a traveler’s pit-stop food into a dining experience for a new audience, now seated in leather chairs under soft light and receiving premium service.

Decades ago, when northern-style hand-pulled noodles were still a curiosity in Vancouver, Legendary Noodle, Peaceful Restaurant, and Old Xi’an’s Food helped introduce Xi’an cooking to the city. Joojak in East Van (one of my personal favourites, which I wrote about several years ago) carries that tradition forward in a smaller, looser way: it’s family-run, with a tighter menu, no pretences, and a rou jia mo closer to what you’d find from a street vendor back home. On one hand, Xi’an Flavor’s polish and deliberateness feels like it falls on the opposite end of the spectrum. Yet, they are connected by the same tradition of combining dough, spice and heat. Taken together, these restaurants trace the slow climb of a cuisine that began as traveler’s fare, and only recently found its refined form in Vancouver.

Xi’an Flavor

1105–4771 McClelland Rd, Richmond, BC

604-782-1188

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