There's a new restaurant in Tucson that I was eager to try and my friend's birthday was the excuse to visit today for lunch. Fatman Kitchen has two chefs, one is Sichuan and one from Shaanxi. We ordered Xi'an Oil Splashing Noodles, Pork Belly with Garlic Sauce and Stir-Fried String Bean.
The wheat noodles are made fresh in-house and were delicious with lots of minced garlic, chili oil, bean sprouts. I believe they are sometimes called Biang Biang noodles and an interesting article with recipe and video here advises that the Chinese character for 'biang' is one of the most complex characters, requiring 42 to 71 strokes to fashion it.
But here is a copy of their menu (no website yet) and the characters don't look complex, so I guess they aren't actually calling them Biang Biang noodles here? @liuzhou, if you are inclined to help, can you advise? Thank you!
Edited to add: I also read this in the article, maybe that's the explanation. Is it literally "oil splashing noodles"?
Biang Biang noodles is also called You Po Che Mian (油泼扯面) which literally means “Oil pouring over hand-pulled noodles”. This name explains a particular method of seasoning “You Po”: place chilli flakes, chilli powder, ground Sichuan pepper, minced garlic and spring onion on top of the cooked noodles, then pour hot oil over. The heat immediately releases the full flavour of all the herbs and spices.
Noodles before mixing, lots of fresh minced garlic!
After mixing all that lovely topping into the noodles and oil. This dish is quite spicy, but in a very mouth-pleasing way. The noodles are huge and toothsome!
Sauteed beans with the option of adding some nice hot chilies to each bite. 🙂
And pork belly, served cold with cucumbers and more chili oil. Sorry, we had already made good progress on this dish before I remembered to take a photo.
The food was amazing and the price very reasonable. Leftovers went home with my friend. I really want to return here but need to remember to go early or late, as it fills up fast.
