How to pursue excellence … in noodles (unlocked bonus)

The world right now, seems tilted towards the good enough. The AI-written wedding toast, the half-assed attempt. Despite this, a handmade noodle shop is trying to make perfect noodles. Trying so hard that they have signs admonishing their customers to ONLY EAT THEIR SPICY NOODLES THE CORRECT WAY, DO NOT TAKE THEM TO-GO, THE EXPERIENCE WILL BE RUINED. Why do some people still want to do small things perfectly, even at the expense of profits? An interview with Jason Wang, of Xi'an Famous Foods. Become a premium member! https://searchengine.supercast.com/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello. It is July at a search engine, which means our team is out of office. For me personally, that means a month where I refuse to make any plan that was formed more than 24 hours in advance. My happiest space. We'll be back in August with new stories for you. In the meantime, we are airing some episodes that our free listeners have never heard, including this one. It first aired on incognito mode, our paid premium feed where we publish without ads and also publish extra episodes. Like this one, which I think about a lot. It's about the pursuit of excellence in domains that other people might overlook. And if you enjoy it, there are a bunch more episodes you've never heard. You just have to click the link to sign up in our show notes. It's $50 a year.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  That is the money we use to keep this show running. All right, enjoy.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  I had a mentor who said something to me once that really stuck. He was teaching me how to make podcasts. Something had gone wrong. I was beating myself up for it. And he said to me, everything wants to suck. Like, the natural orientation of everything is for it to be bad. And if you're trying to make something good, you're just fighting against that the whole time. I thought that was true. It stuck with me. And now, if I'm anywhere where something is excellent, I start to get curious. Like, who is making this excellent? It wants to suck. Who is the person and what are the choices they're making to fight the natural orientation of the universe?

• 1:49Speaker 00

  There's a noodle shop I go to near our studio called Xi'an Famous Foods. That's not just a boast. They are very famous here in New York. They have a few locations. But they're superbly excellent. The noodles are glutinous, they're thick and ribony, they're drenched in this spicy hot oil. I always eat too much. I go for the food, but I also go because while you're in the restaurant, the slightly hilarious thing is that you can feel the ghost of the person trying to make it perfect. There are these very prominent signs telling you how to eat or not eat the noodles so that you don't ruin the experience. My favorite one is posted by the cash register. It says in all caps, "Are you sure you want to take those hand-ripped noodles to go? They will not taste as good as fresh dine-in noodles.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  We allow takeout orders of our hand-ripped noodle dishes due to popular demand, but please heed this warning. The noodles cool down within 15 minutes or less when it's cooled out. As that happens, the sauces will soak into the noodles, causing them to bloat, lose their texture, flavor, and vibrance. The noodles may be reheated, but their original taste and chewiness will be gone." And then in all caps, "So please eat the noodles right away. If you're able to, please have it in the store, or at least take a quick bite from the takeout container to know how it is intended to taste, or just come back another day when you can enjoy the noodles correctly." End quote. That is one of the signs. And the reason I love these signs is because when I read them, I know that there's someone who cares about something more than money. Like, there's a person who is willing to turn away customers if he thinks they will

• 3:18Speaker 00

  have a subpar experience of the excellence that he's trying to summit.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Xi'an Famous Foods. I eat there once a week. This week, I wanted to talk to the person running this empire of noodle shops about how he built this, how he keeps things good, and how he fights the natural tendency of the universe for everything to suck. First off, can you introduce yourself?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yes, thanks so much for the introduction, PJ. My name is Jason Wang. I'm the CEO of Xi'an Famous Foods, the noodle shop in question, and so happy to be here with you.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Did you personally write that sign?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yes. So, when you were talking about the ghost, I was like, you know, I agree with that completely. It's like my aura all over all the noodle shops. And also, I don't know if you noticed, my sound system actually comes in and out. Sometimes I will start talking on there and say like, "Did you know that you could get your something, something?" Kind of like the subway system where people are announcing things. And I was like, "Yeah, it's not just the visuals, but also the creepy audio that comes in at you." So, when you were like the spirit of the person that is running the show here, I was like, "Yeah, that's a great description."

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Do you consider yourself at all a bit of a control freak?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I'm definitely a control freak.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  And is that in the shop? Is that in your life? Like, in what way?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  I think it's in my life and, of course, extends into the shops, into the business. I just can't be helped.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  For better, for worse.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  So, the way this is gonna go, I want to do like the backstory of you and these noodles about what it was like to build the business, and then I want to go into like current day.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, rewinding all the way back, I was born in China. I was born in Xi'an, went to school there, immigrated to the US, and all over the US, not just New York, places like Michigan, and places like Connecticut.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Why were you moving around so much?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It's mostly because I kind of followed wherever my father goes for work. And he worked in restaurants. So, basically, I was following wherever he's going, wherever the opportunity is. So, over a decade of that. So, that was my upbringing, kind of just all over the States, finally settling in New York towards the end of my high school career. So, yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  And what's Xi'an, what is the place like? Like, is it a big city, small town?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  It's not a huge city like Shanghai, or like Guangzhou, or Shenzhen. Those are probably the biggest cities in China, the coastal cities, Beijing, of course. But Xi'an is more inland. Xi'an is in literally the middle of the current China geography. But it used to be the center of trade for imperial and ancient China, being the starting point of the Silk Road. So, it has a lot of history there. 13 dynasties had their capital there. It was more lush, I believe, as well, in the older days. Then there was a bit of a change in climate, and it got more arid. It's drier now, it's more dusty. So, it's kind of faded in a way, but nowadays, experiencing such a rejuvenation of people wanting to visit there.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Like, when I first came to the US, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, what is a supermarket?" Right? We didn't have supermarkets back then. We had like department stores. We had like, you buy your groceries on the streets, on stands, like vegetable stands, or you go to the butcher for your meat. But now, it's changed so much. In China, you could go to any supermarkets in Xi'an, and then you don't have to pay with your wallet or your phone even, you just scan your face. So, just kind of contrast as to how far we came from that dusty little city to a city that's kind of catching up with modern China.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  And what were your days like there as a kid when you were still there?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Well, the only things I remember was being forced to play piano and, you know, because my father bought a piano, and it was very expensive at that time, both budget-wise and objectively speaking. So, he's like, "Yeah, he has to learn this," right? So, I was sort of forced into it, and I did not like it. So, that was a lot of my childhood memories, unfortunately, was that. And also, just a lot of studying. School was very competitive. I had to get like 95% or higher on all midterms and finals. Otherwise, it's like considered failure, just because it's so competitive.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. And was food in general a big part of your family life back there?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  It was definitely a big part of my family life. My dad would always cook. I know my grandfather cooked. They cooked different things, of course. But for me, it's, I have to admit, as I was growing up, I hated food.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Really?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Because I just did not like eating. I was super skinny, and I had to be chased down to be fed. I remember one thing I really hated was yang rou pomlo, which is basically a lamb soup with sliced boiled lamb. And the special thing about it is you would take a piece of bread, like a hard flatbread. In China, you would break it up yourself with your hands. You throw it into the bowl, and in the shop, or if you're at home, you would boil the bread in the soup, making it sort of like a puffy type of bread soup almost. It's not really a soup anymore. It's kind of like a whole heavy meal from that. And I really hated that dish as a kid because it was so heavy. And then I just remember, we had lunch hour. We'd go home during lunch in elementary school back then.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I would go home, and my grandfather would have a bowl that ready for me, and I was like, "This is a lot of food. I can't eat this." And I would just be watching like The Lion King or something, and then eating it. And it would just get cold, and the oil would get hardened, and it would stick to the top of my mouth, and it was just disgusting. So, in China, I didn't appreciate it. But once I left that environment, going into small-town USA, I found out, wow, there's no lamb back then. I couldn't even find it in the supermarket. And all the condiments I'm used to, all the spices are not around. So, I started missing those things I ran away from, you know? So, like, food has changed its identity in my head over the years.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  What year did you move to America?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  1997, 98, around those.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  And where was the first place your family went to when you got there?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I moved into a small town in the Midwest. I think that was also very important because if I ended up in New York, I think it would have been different. My family is actually very small. Most of my family is still in China. And I think in the first couple of years of being in the US, there was some points where I was like, I'm not learning English fast enough. I'm always in this ESL type of situation, even though the school is so small, they didn't really have an ESL program. But I was always kind of segregated, like, oh yeah, he doesn't speak English yet. So let's not have him take the regular test that kids usually take, like spelling tests and things like that. So it just felt like this is not somewhere I could be long term. And that homesickness, along with everything else, whether it's food every day or whether it's, sorry to jump around, but like food wise,

• 9:43Speaker 01

  I used to hate the smell of pizza. I used to hate the smell of pickles, like the dill flavor. But I love those now.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  But it was like they were just like unfamiliar.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Very unfamiliar. We didn't use dill. We never used any of those spices. I mean, now pizza is all over China, but back then we didn't have pizza. There's no Pizza Hut. There's no.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  What did it smell like to your nose when you smelled pizza?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  It smelled like puke. It smelled like puke. It was because of the, I think it was because of the sauce, the onion combination with, whether it's oregano or basil. When I walked in a pizza one day, you know, a small town, you know, that's what they had. And I was like, I can't stay in here. This, this, I can't stand the smell.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's a really relatable thing, like the food of another culture that you haven't been exposed to, particularly like a food with a strong flavor smell. It's like alienating. It's a weird feeling. It's just so, it's so interesting to me hearing you describe pizza that way. Cause obviously for me, it's like, that's like such a food that I was socialized really to be used to.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  It's standard. I mean, now I can't even think back why it was so weird to me. But that was just a different physical state I was in, I guess. But now it's definitely a part of my weekly, I would say, diet.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Why is Xi'an food so hard to find in the US in general?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Historically in the US, when you think about immigration from China, where are they coming from? China is a big country, right? But people are coming from the southeast region initially, right? People that came to build the railroads, for example, people that settled in Chinatown, they're from the southeast. So they're going to bring the culture, the language, a lot of the Chinese dishes that we know of, like egg fuyang is not really Chinese. But even the wording of it is not like Mandarin. It's more like closer to Cantonese, right? So, and that is because the first wave of immigrants, whether they just made that dish up, it's still in their language, right? It's their dialect. So that is sort of why the fixation of what Chinese people eat in the US,

• 11:34Speaker 01

  the understanding was that it's like dim sum or it's like more Cantonese food, you know, more seafood focused, lighter flavors, not necessarily spicy. And that was kind of the framework until maybe later in the 20th century. Then more immigrants came over from say like Shanghai, from Sichuan, and also of course Taiwan, right? Taiwan is actually a melting pot of Chinese cuisine because of historically during the revolution, during the civil war, a lot of people settled from all parts of mainland China into Taiwan, bringing their different cultures, different foods. So anyways, getting back to your question, PJ, sorry, I go on tangents, you gotta stop.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  It's like food travels with immigration patterns and what you're describing is like

• 12:20Speaker 00

  the waves of like people from different parts of China bringing different kinds of cuisines.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And kind of getting back on track here is there's never been a big wave of people from Xi'an is my point. There's been waves of people from various parts that are closer to the ocean, right? It's a little easier to get to the US. Xi'an is like landlocked, it's way in there. And our drive was really just, we want something to serve to people that are like us, serve folks from our region.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, okay, so to go about you, you moved to America, your dad's working in restaurants. Can you just describe for me, like, what does that look like? Like what type of restaurants, what type of jobs, for how long? Like, what did it look like for your dad to be working in restaurants then?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  So what I observed was I was mostly elementary, middle school and some of high school. I'm usually at home like by myself for a few days of the week until he gets off. He comes over and he cooks some food for me so that I could have for a few more days. And then he's off to work again. Usually the work would involve working in restaurants that are out of state. Opportunities are not always local. I remember him just having a bunch of newspapers, looking through and making calls to ask like, hey, you know, what do you need? Who do you need? What is the pay? What is the responsibilities and how soon do you need someone? He'd make a lot of those phone calls. He would have like sprawling a bunch of newspapers on the floor and send his underwear, just making these calls, right?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And then it could be something like, oh, we need someone right now. I need you to be here today. So then he would basically have to catch the next greyhound or something. Or when we had a car, he would drive over immediately. I know that there was one time in Connecticut, someone needed a dishwasher because it was like holiday season and they were really busy. I think it was like a buffet restaurant. So they had a lot of dishes piled up. They needed someone right away. And then they're like, okay, well, they'll be your pay to like, it was like 200, which is a lot back then, right? If you were to come in right now and to wash all these dishes, right? And then so he drove on a blizzard to get to this place. And I think it was like a three, four hour drive, got there and there was like a mountain of dishes waiting to be washed.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  And he washed those and then he got paid and then he couldn't even, I mean, it was not a lot of money to count, but still like he couldn't even count. His fingers are so stiff from washing. And then he drove back on a blizzard and all that. So those were like more of the extreme gigs. Other gigs, I remember like in Jersey, I remember actually going over to like Cape May, for example. There was a restaurant over there and I kind of tagged along once because the owner had the house where all the employees were staying. And he had a kid, so I was hanging out with his kid. It was sort of like a mini vacation while my father was working for the restaurant. So that's usually the arrangement. And once you get your first gig, I think you know where to find the next gig and restaurants are networked as well. So they would know whoever hired you for this restaurant may be able to introduce you to another one, et cetera.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  So it's a very interesting system.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  And why is it so like freelance? Like, why isn't it just places hire you and you work at one restaurant for a long time?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Everything's very seasonal, I think. And business is a little unpredictable. And honestly, people change, like in terms of what they want. The instability, I think of the immigrant working population is because they have instability in their lives, right? They don't know if they're going to be in this country for that long. A lot of folks are in the country to make money, to support family back home. They're just looking to stay a few months, do some work and then take money back. The exchange rate makes it worthwhile to make that trip. And that's why there's so much temporary type of gigs.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Got it. So it wasn't like a feature of the way your dad was working or something. It's like, that was just how people worked. It was a highly dynamic, highly temporary kind of.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say the turnover is not great in restaurant industry in general. For Chinese restaurant, it's the same, maybe even more extreme. I have to admit, I think, you know, my father definitely has a personality as well, so he doesn't always get along with other people.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  What's his personality like?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  His personality is one that will always fight with me and vice versa as well. Or it could even be something as simple as like, he didn't like the way I taught to him, more like personal. And that bleeds into business and sometimes that becomes an issue as well. So he's a, you know, he's a sensitive guy. And I think that back then when he worked for people with some bosses that he vibed with, that he got along with. But there's other people that he just did not agree with and then he just basically left. So, yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  You're almost describing somebody who sounds at least halfway like an artist.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You could say he's an artist, you know, he's definitely more eccentric, definitely passionate, definitely passionate, I would say. And I think it takes a little bit of crazy to really survive in this industry.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  How did your dad decide to go from working in other people's restaurants to starting his own thing?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  You know, my father, he's always been very passionate about food that we eat from Xi'an. That's always been in the back of his mind, I think, even when he worked for other restaurants, whether it's like a sushi place or a buffet. But his real passion has always been with our own cuisine. And right before when we started, which was 2005, there's nothing like, I dare say right now, there's still not that much around the country, right? So I think the leap of faith into doing something that he's always wanted to do, like meaning to serve our own food, came when I graduated from high school. Once I graduated from high school, I went on my own path. He feels like he doesn't need to have a safety net in anymore to make sure I'm taken care of.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  So he's like, okay, I could go on a limb and actually do something I always wanted to do, starting from nothing huge. It's not like he put in so much money into such a huge restaurant. It was actually just a stall in the basement food court in Flushing, Queens. So.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  How do you describe Xi'an cuisine, by the way? Like, how do you explain to people who aren't familiar with it?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  So Xi'an cuisine, there's a lot of different dishes, but overall the, the flavor profile is spicy and sour. Suan la or fragrantly spicy, xiang la. So sour like from vinegar, it's quite prevalent in a lot of our dishes. And fragrantly spicy means like in contrast with say Sichuan cuisine where it's like spicy, tingly and could be really fiery. Our cuisine tops out because the peppers are very red. They're very fragrant. They smell very good. They're not super spicy.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  I tend to be like, almost like, like my spice tolerance, I guess, has gotten higher just living in New York. But it's like, you don't feel like you're masochistically proving something, but it's spicy enough that you have an almost like.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's funny. I always joke about this, but it's like a slightly like druggish experience almost. Like, there's kind of like a mild, like when I'm eating the noodles, like my head does something strange. Like, it's like 1% psychedelic somehow.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they call it crack noodles, right? And I was like, okay, all right. I like that comparison, but, um, you know, hopefully this is healthier. But for people who have had the spice, it becomes addicting in some ways, right? Yeah, and it becomes like part of what you have to have. So that's the dominant flavors. And of course, there's other dishes like our flatbread buns. That's gonna be more about the spices. So spices, meaning things like cumin, cardamom, all sorts of spices are not native to China, but from India, maybe from more west. And that's really because of how the cuisine was influenced over the centuries because of the Silk Road.

• 19:45Speaker 00

  So, okay, so your dad opened like a boba stall. He opens a stall selling what noodles?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  He sold bubble tea. He was like, okay, I do want to sell my food, but I also don't want to go broke if it's a failure. So he wanted to hedge it a little bit by selling bubble tea, because he's like, bubble tea is just water and flavoring. That's all there is. Tapioke, that's it. And it should be hard to fail at that. So he got the franchise and he sold food on the side. It's like, oh, I have some food if you want some too. And those would be the ampico skin noodles, the burgers, and a little bit of the pulled noodles. But more and more, as he operated the business, people, yeah, they're buying the bubble tea, but more people were interested in the food. So the bubble tea actually got dwarfed after a little while by the food. So then he was like, well, why am I selling bubble tea? Why not just focus on the

• 20:33Speaker 01

  food at this point? It feels right at that point. So that's why he moved into the Golden Shopping Mall.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  And can you just describe, because I feel like if someone hasn't visited, they're gonna picture the wrong thing. It's not a random American shopping mall with a food court with like a Taco Bell and like a whatever. Like, how do you describe this experience that somebody would have? What happens when you walk in there?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Golden Shopping Mall was a literal basement. You walk down the stairs and then everything's in Chinese. There are different stalls that don't have AC and don't have, I could say this now because we're not there anymore, doesn't have a proper exhaust system. All right. So somehow, you know, fire department never raised issue with it, but that's all said and done. That's all in the past. And very close proximity, you know, really just a three-foot wide corridor, the bare minimum for people to walk down and just stall after stall. You got food from the Southeast China, food from Northeast, you got food from our place like in the center,

• 21:32Speaker 01

  considered Northwest China, and all Chinese menus. And the place is hot in the summer, cold in the winter, people hawking a little bit as well in terms of if someone were to walk down with a group, they'd be like, yeah, come eat here instead of over there. That was the vibe.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Is it a hard place? Because I've been there. The food is delicious. You feel like you can sit down anywhere and have something special. But from the side of selling food in that environment, it seems highly competitive.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Very competitive. Gotta admit, we weren't best of friends, like people would think. If a stall across from you sees that you're getting a lot of customers, they're gonna bang their noodles a little harder, a little louder to get the attention. There's been fights over napkin use as well. A lot of customers that go down there, they think everyone's free for all. Like, I could sit here and eat their food. I could, you know, like, customers don't know, right? They're just there to eat. But the politics of it, it's more like, oh, well, your customer's eating more of your food, so don't take my napkins, right? So there's been a couple punches thrown because of that, you know, and a couple apologies issued. And, uh, you know, I won't go into details, but yeah, I had to call the cops on behalf of my dad once for that. When the cops got there, they were just like confused. Like, what is going on here? Why are we called

• 22:41Speaker 01

  to this place? Let's just shake and make up, you know? It's like, this is over napkins. And everyone's speaking Chinese and I'm the only one speaking English, trying to translate. All the customers are like, watching what's going on. It was quite weird. And, you know, it's kind of a hard thing to tell friends. It's like, what did you do today for work? Oh, you know, I had to break up a fight over napkins, you know? So, good times.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  We're gonna take a short break. When we return, a tiny noodle shop becomes, very improbably, internationally famous.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the show.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  So the fame kind of started locally with the Chinese immigrant population, whether it's Chinese newspapers or whether it's the Sinovision, which is like the Chinese news TV here in New York. They did a bunch of reports. Lines were down the corridor of the food court, up the stairs, out around the corner of Main Street and 41st Road. Basically, there were a lot of people interested in the food coming from out of state. And there were Chowhounds from back then when Chowhounds was a forum. Remember that?

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  So I monitored all that because I made the website. So like, I would see where they're coming from. I would see the people were so interested, they would take pictures of the menu in Chinese and they have someone else translate it and then share it.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  One of the moments that I noticed, like a big moment in the story of what you guys built was Anthony Bourdain comes to eat.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Queens. One minute you're in some stereotypical idea of why it is that you don't live in Queens, but the next, you're not even in America.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Were you there when that happened? Like, were you working with your dad at that point?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I was not yet. The first time he came was for no reservations, and that was in 2007.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  How did he find it?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  He didn't find our stall. He found the Golden Shopping Mall.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  The Golden Shopping Mall, a warren of vendors selling all sorts of mysterious and tasty specialties from all across China.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  So it was a hub. He went there for the mall with all these different cuisines. Our stall became sort of the hit because he specifically, when he was sitting in our stall having our food, said,

• 24:57Speaker 02

  This place is unbelievable. This place is great. I've never had anything like this. I mean, I've tasted these flavors, but I've never had this within the framework of Chinese with that mix. It's, this is really great.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  This is something that I haven't tasted in Chinese cuisine.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  And I think that really boosted us in terms of bringing us into the spotlight for non-Chinese speaking diners.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  So it's basically like, the food court was like the scene, and you guys ended up being partly like the star of that scene. Did your dad understand there's some guy with a film crew, like what that meant at first?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  My dad didn't know who he was. My dad did know because of the entourage that he had, this must be somewhat important. And because some other diners that were there were like, oh, boss, you're gonna be famous now, because they know who he is, right? And so my dad sent me a picture that he snapped while they were filming, which was a no-no, you know, because it was flash. He didn't know. He was, I need a snap, like a Sony point and shoot that he had using that to take menu photos usually, but he sent it to me. He's like, who is this guy? He seems really famous. I didn't recognize him either, because I didn't really watch TV at that point. I was never in the common room of our living dorms. So that's where the TV is. And I show my, you know, suite mates. I was like, who is this? And they told me, I was like,

• 26:16Speaker 01

  oh dude, we watched him all the time on TV. I was like, wait, is he the bald guy? Meaning Andrew Zimmer? No, he's not the bald guy. He's the other guy. I was, oh, Anthony Bourdain, okay. So, yeah, that was that.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  So how did your dad get out of there? Like, how did he get out of the food court?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  He got out because I got back in New York.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  What happened?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  So I was on my own track. I studied finance marketing in college. I went to Wash U in St. Louis, and I was supposed to do work on my own, but I always had this like itch for the business because I always helped out during breaks throughout college. And I helped make the website, helped translate the menu, and just helped a little bit from afar, right? And after I graduated, I worked a stint in Minneapolis for Target Corporation and wasn't the best at what I did, let's just say. I was really not in it. My heart was not in it, now looking back. So at one point, I was just like, you know, this is not really for me and I have to really find my own path. And luckily, at that time, I got fired. It worked out, you know? I was like, oh, okay, all right. Obviously, it was a hit to my ego, right? No one likes being fired. But,

• 27:17Speaker 01

  you know, I think it takes that type of experience to experience something like that in order to kind of refocus a little bit. Things are not always gonna go as expected, and one door closes, one door opens. So at that time, I called my dad. I was like, hey, honestly, not because I got fired, but I always wanted to do something with this business. I think it had a lot of potential. If we don't do something with it, if you just stay in the stall and flushing, someone else is just gonna capitalize on your fame and your idea. So I just, I drove all the way back from Minneapolis with all my belongings and my sedan and fell asleep in the McDonald's parking lot, drove back in a couple of days. And then next day, my dad was like, okay, you can rest for a day and the next day you're gonna work, right? So doing the basics, can't

• 27:58Speaker 01

  do anything at that point, have no food experience. So I just took out the trash, you know, helped clean, make some simple dishes.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Did it feel humbling?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, very humbling. Because, you know, the thing is, Wash U is considered a pretty good school. So, and during school, I was always like, I got this on my SATs and I went to this school. And, you know, your academics become a bragging point. And, you know, at that point, I was also dating someone from college. And a part of when we were first going out, it was like talking about, she was like always impressed. It was like, oh, you have this internship at Yahoo, you have an internship at Wells Fargo. It's like, yeah, you're so on track with everything, Jason, you know? And my friends who were in the city after graduation, some of them were going to medical school, some of them were going to graduate school MBA programs, some of them were working. They would come after work, some in their scrubs, some of them in their suits, and they would visit me and I'm cashiering at this restaurant. It's definitely a big hit when

• 28:51Speaker 01

  I was like, oh shit, I'm working in my dad's stall in a basement. But it's humbling because at the end of the day, It took a lot of heart to know that this is going somewhere to continue day after day. The days weren't easy, like they weren't like, oh yeah, I'll just do a lunch shift and I'll go home. No, it was morning till close. When we started expanding out of the basement food court, I had to drive our employees to the first Lower East Side Chinatown location, like under the bridge. This was 2010. I drove them in the morning. We drop off stuff from my trunk, like the food supplies. They go in, start the store, I go park and then I come back, I open the store, I cashier, I make the food all the way until close, close the store, they come back in my car.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  I drive them back to, we all lived in Flushing, I drive them to Flushing, dropped them off at their homes. And then I go home, I maybe eat my first meal of the day. Cause there's no time to eat when you're working and you're not supposed to eat in the kitchen, per DOH regulations. But you don't feel hungry because you're on your feet the whole day. So anyways, that was like the life. So everything was kind of hard, but what kept me going was like, this is going somewhere. This is something that I could feel, not to glorify the day to day grind, but I think I'm really proud of those years because I think that usually that leads to something, you know, it takes a lot of heart, so.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Once you go home and you're helping the restaurant, you're doing like the rote sort of grindy stuff. But like, you were also coming to it with expertise in finance and marketing. Like, how did the business start to evolve when you joined the business? Like, what was the thing that you were starting to do to try to make it more than what it was?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. First, I can definitely say being school educated does not mean you are ready to run a business. In retrospect, right? So being school educated, I think it helps to give you the mindset to approach problems. Not that you'll have answers in your hands, ready to go. That comes from experience, I think. And over the years, it's still a learning experience. I'm still learning to this day. Because there's things change, your business changes, you need different things over time. So it's always evolving and I think as a good business leader or owner operator, you have to adapt. At that point, I think the low hanging fruits were simple things such as introducing a POS system.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Because I made websites, so I know computers a little bit back then. And we had a box with a green button on it that opens and you click the green button and that's it. That has cash in it. There's no cards or anything. And my father's not the most computer savvy person, so that's all he used, that's all he needed. He'd do calculations in his head. Taxes were included back then. So you don't have to add on the 8.875%. So you know, that's how we worked. We remember people by their faces. Oh yeah, that tall guy, the short guy, oh, that lady there. The guy with the kid. That's how we remembered the orders and calculated the orders and charged them. So that's a low hanging fruit. That was like the best thing I did in the first year. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so cool now. I contributed so much, but there's so much more than that.

• 31:55Speaker 00

  And what point do you go like stall to restaurant to restaurants, plural? When do those things happen?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as soon as I got back, my father already signed two new locations. In anticipation of me coming back. So the pressure was really on. I remember getting back and having to just draw the kitchen plan for that under the bridge location within like the first month. I didn't know what the heck is going on, but just trying to figure it out. So multiple locations came as soon as I came back. But the first location that was actually like my own location that I scouted personally, that I opened personally from start to finish, like talking to the landlord, everything, was our East Village location on St. Mark's. And that was a location I worked at pretty much every day for at least a year.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  And that's where I learned the most about the business.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  And what did you learn in that location?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Learned every dish, learned how to open, close everything, learned how to talk to people. That was when I came out of my shell. I'm actually a pretty shy person. Back then, I'm more, I wouldn't say bookish, but you know, I'm not known for being very outgoing and charismatic in terms of talking with strangers, maybe people I know. But when you're a cashier and you're meeting hundreds of people a day and there are nice people and there are going to be difficult people, you have to be able to deal with all of them. And that was a great sort of training ground for me back then. And of course, the kitchen side, working with employees, that was when I actually hired people. And at that point, it was like, we can't hire people who are only Chinese speaking. We need people who can speak English as well.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  So it really became sort of critical for me to expand from just the Chinatown business to a New York business.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  And what about at that point, working with your dad? Like, how, how was that? It seems, I love my dad. It seems really hard to imagine.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, it's stressful. A lot of arguments I don't even remember anymore because there are so many. There were multiple times that I called my good friend and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. He wants to do stuff on his own sometimes. He's like, I don't need you. Even though like, I know that's not true. He's just saying out of anger. There's a lot of stuff he does I can't do. There's a lot of stuff I do that he can't do. We have these fights all the time. It's not easy. We don't have meetings together with our staff because every time we are in the same meeting, we will fight and everyone else will feel awkward.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And we get pretty like, to the point where everyone else is silent. So I, we want to save them of that. It's a little inefficient to have two meetings, separate meetings with our staff, but that's how we do it right now. But for me, it's, the thing that keeps pulling me back. At the beginning, it was a point of pride, right? It's like, I don't want to fail again. But nowadays, if you're saying like, why do I keep going? It's because we already built something for our guests. We built something for our staff that we can't just simply exit out of. That's something that keeps pulling me back. So, yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  And what years did you guys really start to expand, expand?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  I would say right before, a couple of years before the pandemic, we were really starting to expand.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  You were doing it right before the pandemic?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  We were starting to expand two, three years before the pandemic.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Was that bad? I mean, was it just the pandemic?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  The pandemic froze everything, of course, right? Like, everything kind of crashed down. We had to lay off pretty much everyone at that point and it was really scary. But the faith in the brand always remained because even when we're all closed, people are still emailing us like, hey, we're in lockdown right now, but we could really use some of your chili oil, for example. So you know, we started shipping stuff. I started delivering meal kits locally, using some sort of app that roots all the stops. It was cool because there was no traffic in New York and I would just drive around and drop off stuff and actually meeting the customers face to face during the pandemic, outside of course, but it was pretty cool. But nowadays, I would say that our expansion has really sped up in the recent times, you know?

• 35:50Speaker 00

  How many sources are there?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  We're 25 right now.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  I mean, part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, like, there's places I go where I like the food, where I'm not as curious about why the food's good. I think like, I, like, I'm not an expert on food. I eat it. And one of the things that I've noticed is that I'll love a place, they'll start to expand and like, they'll stay good enough that people will keep coming, but they'll lose something, you know? It's like, it's hard to make anything good. It's super hard to teach other people how to make things good to the same standard. You guys seem to have really done that in a way that feels really rare. Like, what do you think you learned learning how to?

• 36:27Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, first of all, it's very hard to, all the businesses that have expanded. It's not for lack of trying, I would say. It's just because it really is hard as a food business. Our food is not cooked by robots. Our food is cooked by humans. And the more artisanal the food is, rather than just like something that's pre-made, you heat it up and you just pack it together. If it's any sort of labor, any sort of technique that goes into it, like pulling noodles or cooking our lamb, things like that, mistakes will be made. We've made mistakes since day one. We still make mistakes. And we've made compromises that I think a lot of people are not super happy about. We had to cut down some of our dishes over the years, especially during the pandemic. The lamb palmo soup, that bread soup that I told you about, a lot of our Chinese customers really miss that soup.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  They're like up on red note, basically messaging like, why'd you get rid of that? Bring that back. I petitioned to get it back. And then others, folks that are into noodles, they're like, why don't you serve the oxtail noodles anymore? It's so good. And I really do miss that dish myself. So with expansion, there are things we have to give up in terms of like, some things are just. Very labor intensive.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  That are not operationally efficient. One dish could delay a whole line in terms of like efficiencies in the kitchens. And if it's very different from other dishes, it has to be 86 for the time being. We do want to bring things back as specials every now and then. But I think that's an important part of like an expanding restaurant is the efficiency. But sometimes there's some things lost.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  So it's like doing less to make sure that you can do what you're doing well and efficiently.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Being cognizant of our limitations. We can't do everything. Even if you go to Xi'an, there are restaurants that only serve pao mao. That's the only thing they serve and they do it very well. They're famous for it. And there are restaurants that only serve noodles or only serve lamb pie. I aspire to move more towards that direction rather than be a jack of all trades because we're human. We can't do everything. There's going to be more errors. But of course, if we're able to, you know, better ourselves in the future, I can always bring it back.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  I get the sense from the signage in the restaurant, if nothing else, that you are not super into delivery. But you guys do delivery. It's weird. When I order delivery from you, I feel like I'm like pirating music or something. Like, why did you start doing it despite your reservations?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  But I think the big answer is COVID. And it's not because COVID was draining us of sales. Of course, it had a big financial impact on our sales. But it was more so that COVID itself changed consumer behavior expectations. And like, if you were a person back before the pandemic that never ordered takeout, you might feel like, well, my expectations for this noodle is to arrive exactly like it would in the stores. Right? So like, it was almost sort of like a education by ordering because more people ordered food than they would normally. And because of that, there's more understanding that food is not going to be 100% when it's delivered. So that was our biggest concern.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  We were worried, we still are worried about our food being misrepresented. Because if it's your first time having Xi'an Famous Foods, you get it delivered. Noodles come in, they're tasteless, they're soggy, they're clump. And that's your impression of Xi'an Famous Foods. We can't have that, right? But we still take measures to mitigate that. We limit our radius to, I think in the city, we have six or seven minutes delivery by bike. Outside of New York City is seven minutes by car. And that's as far as we will go. We're not going to go beyond that. Some people are not happy about that either. They're like, why is your radius so small? But that's really why so that works for us. We're also developed ways to separate the sauces, the noodles, to give it a few more minutes of life. So you could put it together. We developed a video guide as to how to put it together.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  All these measures just to make sure that you have a decent first experience.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Jason's very, very cautious embrace of delivery has now extended to some cities outside New York. In some of these places, he's experimented with ghost kitchens. Delivery only, tiny outposts, just to test whether he can pull off good delivery elsewhere. The plan is, if it works, to expand in those cities to normal four-wall stores. But if you live in a place right now like DC, you might see one of these ghost kitchens. They are Jason's begrudging compromise with the post-COVID reality of most restaurant experiences now being delivery. Although even now in his restaurants, he still tries to push people towards just eating the noodles there. And what does it feel like for you when you think about somebody

• 40:59Speaker 00

  having the wrong? Like, the customer experience is like the final step in a process you're trying to create. And it's the part where you lose total control. Like, you can't, if someone's gonna sit there at the table and let the noodles get cold, you like can't legally stop them.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  When you picture someone having a bad experience, what is the feeling you have?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  It just feels like I feel bad that they are missing out on what could be a good experience, right? In a way where, so that's why I'm like, I want to throw all these signs up because I want to prevent you from walking down the wrong path, so to speak. And that's where the control freak comes in, you know? I can't take your hands and force you. Every customer might think I talk too much. When they order something, they're like, oh, but I'm gonna take it home. I'm like, how far is your home? And she'll be like, oh, you know, it's like an hour. But oh, that's no good. It's not that good after an hour. Do you want to just have a little bit here? And she's, oh, no, it's not gonna be good. What if I separate? I was like, I could separate for you.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  But it only gives you like 10 or 15 more minutes than usual. And she'd be like, oh, I didn't know about that. And I'm like, holding up the line and I'm talking too much. But that's like the control freak in me. I'm just like, I want to make sure you understand, like, you're missing out if you're not having it right away. So I was like, just have a bite. Will you have a bite for me? And she's, okay. Another person be like, I want the cold noodles, but you want the sauce mixture together? And then she'll be like, oh, mix is okay. I was like, you need 15 minutes, right? She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm just around the corner. I'm like, okay, good. So that's, yeah. You know, you can't force people, but I think in a way where you let them know the information, make the right choices. That's all we can do.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  It doesn't seem like the way you choose to run your business is totally moment-to-moment profit maximizing. Like, you could have a wider delivery radius. You could open more stores less carefully. You could like, do you know what I mean?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  I know what you mean. I would say this, PJ, like, for me, I'm happy with where I am in terms of what I have. And I don't need more. I don't need to make a mark to like prove myself anymore in a way where it's like, I need to hit this number. Or I also don't have investors. I'm okay. So I don't have that push. Everything else is more about doing things right and making sure that this is going to be a business that I'm going to still be proud of, that I still want my name attached to. I think that's really the motivating factor a lot of times.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Is that you want something that you can put your name on and feel proud?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  And when did you start to feel like you did have what you wanted? Like, you did have enough?

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I think that, you know, it's all relative. You know, like, when we opened three or four stores, it feels like, yeah, this is good. Four, five stores, 10 stores. I think that a big part of what makes me content with where I am is also family. I'm 38 and I'm married. I just had a kid, you know, six, thank you, six weeks ago. So I think that is a very important part of my life. And I think that having this as an anchor, not that everything else doesn't matter, not that the business doesn't matter. But I think as a person, you have your ambitions. If you don't have a goal that you want to hit and you feel like you're always missing out on something. For me, maybe it's family.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Maybe it's just being able to see someone who potentially take over in the future, right? That, to me, in a way, is comforting and maybe more so than dollar amount, maybe more so than store count. And that's probably a good spot for me. And I want the business to continue to be strong. I want to leave a good legacy for my family. And I wanted to continue to serve my guests who have been dining here for like decades now, actually. So that's really the motivating factor. Everything else, all the financial, not to say I don't look at the bottom. I look at the bottom line. But the thing is, the bottom line is more so a means to an end rather than the end. And overall, the year is going to be a very exciting year for us

• 45:07Speaker 01

  just because we have six stores in the pipelines right now. Three in New York, one in Boston.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  And two in the DMV area. So one in Maryland, one in Virginia. Things are coming along, hoping to open this summer. People are waiting for us to open and I can't wait to really make a big splash with those grand openings, so.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Are you gonna be there telling people how to eat the noodles?

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. That's what I'm there for, you know, being the annoying guy that talks too much.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Thank you for talking to me about this.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  What do you recommend people's first order?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  I would say depends on how hungry you are and depends on the season. If it's a hot day, try the cold skin noodles. If it's a cold day, try our hamper noodles. Which hamper noodles? Best sellers are spicy cumin lamb or the spicy tingly beef. But you know what? Our hot oil sear noodles is pretty much a vegan option, even though it's cooked in the water with our dumplings. So if you're okay with that, then it is vegan. And our pork jiao noodles has actually been a sleeper hit these days. So definitely happy to introduce you to the different flavors, but I want you to make your decision.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  How many times in your life do you think you've said those words?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  A billion times. So many times. And sometimes I catch myself, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. Yeah, definitely been a few times.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Thank you. That was my interview with Jason Wang of Xi'an Famous Foods. If you enjoyed it, if you want to hear more of the interviews you may have never heard on Search Engine before, check out Incognito Mode. You can find it in our show notes or by navigating to searchengine.show. It's $50 a year. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vote, and Trudy Pennamineni. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. Emily Multer is our associate producer. Our production intern is Piper Duvan. This episode was produced by Kim Kupel. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Our executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey. Rob Mirandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gainer, Moore Curran, Joe Spina Francis, Kirk Courtney, Vanessa Tinkati, and Elroy Shuff. If you have a business and like to advertise on Search Engine, please email us, [email protected], subject line, advertising. We also sometimes just choose to cover noodle restaurants we love. That is not an advertisement. That is our strange editorial prerogative. You can also send us questions if you have them. [email protected] is the place to send them as well. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.