The NYC mini-chain, Bites of Xia’an, is one of the many Northern Chinese restaurants that launched after Xi’an Famous Foods captured the tastebuds of New Yorkers.  Bites of Xi’an 56 is a small, low rent feeling, joint with an open kitchen, 3 or 4 tables and a narrow counter along one wall. In the open kitchen you can see four pressure cookers braising meat for the Roujamo – Xi’an style meat sandwiches.  One thing this restaurant has going for it, is that it smells really good.

The Dumplings:  Bites of Xi’an 56 serves pan-fried dumplings (veggie, pork, or chicken) and steamed dumplings (pork & cabbage, chicken & cabbage, pork & chives, and shrimp, pork and chives) served in spicy and sour soup, clear broth or spicy red oil. Alone the pan-fried pork dumplings had a very mild, almost timid, flavor, but blossomed when dunked into the really flavorful, gingery soy dipping sauce.  These dumplings come 10 to an order and were served piled in a plastic bucket.  Unfortunately, the residual grease on the upper dumplings in the pile flowed down onto, and saturated, the dumplings at the bottom of the pile.   I did not love this.

I also tried the steamed pork and cabbage dumplings in spicy and sour soup, which was quite disappointing.  The dumplings themselves had the same bland flavor as the pan-fried dumplings and the soup was very watery, with little sour or spicy flavor.  The lack of spice was surprising because it looked like there was a decent amount of red chili oil in the soup.   This version of the dish was nothing like the flavor bomb that is Xi’an Famous Foods’ version of this dish.

The Location.  Bites of Xi’an 56 is on 56^th, street midway between 5^th and 6^th avenues.  It is on a strip of Asian restaurants that look like they mainly cater to lunch orders from nearby office workers.