While Sichuanese cuisine has been well known in London for more than a decade, the food of China’s great northwest was almost unknown until a few years ago, when word began to spread of the irresistible noodles served in a tiny snack shop near the Emirates Stadium. Xi’an Impression was co-founded by chef Guirong Wei, and her signature dish was biang biang noodles, hand-pulled ribbons of dough that are slapped on a counter-top (producing the “biang biang” sound of their name), before being boiled, topped with chilli and garlic and then finished with a fizz of sizzling-hot oil. They take pride of place on the menu, alongside other Xi’an snacks such as potsticker dumplings, slippery “cold-skin” noodles and Xi’an hamburgers (handmade flatbreads stuffed with pulled pork or cumin-scented beef). Earlier this year, Wei opened her first solo restaurant, the larger Master Wei, in Bloomsbury. Both specialise in the famous “flour-foods” (mianshi) of Xi’an, ancient Silk Road metropolis, capital of modern Shaanxi province and home of the first emperor’s Terracotta Army.
Wei grew up in a poor, mountainous region of southern Shaanxi, the eldest of three daughters. In the absence of a son who would eventually take over their land according to rural Chinese tradition, her parents hoped she would remain in the village. “But I was rebellious and I wanted my freedom,” she says. At 13 she was taken in by a family friend in Xi’an, who treated her like a granddaughter and encouraged her to choose a profession like dressmaking, but, having been inspired as a child by her own grandmother’s cooking, she decided to go to culinary college instead. A self-declared tomboy, she thrived as one of a handful of girls at a cooking school with more than a thousand male students, particularly, she says, thanks to the kindness of the deputy head, who impressed upon her the importance of self-reliance. After a year at college, she did a year’s work experience in the local pastry arts before moving to an upmarket restaurant where she worked for seven years, winning a gold medal in a provincial pastry contest and eventually rising to the rank not only of head chef, but the only female head chef in Xi’an.
In 2008, she was introduced to the owner of the Sichuanese restaurant Barshu, who persuaded her to come to work in London. “My first impression of London was how polite people were,” she says, “But at first I didn’t have much time to explore. Before I came here, I thought western food was simply like KFC and McDonalds, but since then I’ve discovered many delicious things, including tapas and pizza.”
Wei is a passionate advocate of the cooking of her hometown. “Xi’an food is very traditional, and many dishes have ancient roots,” she says. “The northern climate is much better suited to growing wheat than the south, which is why we have so many flour-foods [including noodles, dumplings and breads]. Many of them are usually handmade to order, including biang biang noodles, ear-like pasta shells (mashi), pulled noodles (la tiaozi) and boiled dumplings (shuijiao). We also eat a lot of beef and lamb, and adore suanla, the sour and hot flavour. Xi’an food isn’t as electrifying as the Sichuanese, but we use a great many seasonings.” These include cumin, vinegar and a variety of spices – and many chilli oils for different purposes.
“The Xi’an food I miss most when I’m in England is ‘water-basin lamb’ (shuipen yangrou), a traditional dish that has recently become popular at home. It’s a great soup of slow-cooked lamb with spices that is finished off with slippery noodles and coriander,” Wei says, adding that she also misses the fresh walnuts used in cold dishes in the harvest season. Most of the ingredients Wei needs to cook Xi’an food in London – including Chinese cardamom, coriander seeds and cassia bark – she buys in Indian shops. “The only thing I really need to bring back from Shaanxi is our pounded dried chillies (lajiaomian), which are particularly fragrant and not too hot.” She admits that she tones some of her flavours down a bit for British tastes: “Xi’an people like garlic so much that they will munch on whole raw cloves – obviously I don’t use so much garlic here.”
As the eldest child in her family, Wei supported both her sisters through their education: one is now a doctor, the other works in the vegetable wholesale trade. She now works with her husband, Song Yong, another Xi’an native, who mostly oversees Xi’an Impression while she runs Master Wei. In the future, she says, she hopes to open a vegetarian restaurant focusing on Shaanxi Buddhist temple food. Wei has been overwhelmed by Londoners’ enthusiasm for her food: “I never expected local people to like it so much!”
Master Wei, 13 Cosmo Pl, London WC1N 3AP
