LaoXi Noodle House

Large group — yes, came here with a group of 9 and possibly got the only large round table.
Service was very good — servers were nice and spoke English well. They kindly gave us a pitcher of iced water with lemon and quickly came with a towel when we had a spill.
Parking — there’s a lot! Its shared with other places but I didn’t have any difficulty getting a spot.
It was a hot social day so temperature wise restaurant was nice and cool — maybe ac, definitely a fan.
Food — About ½ the group ordered wife’s noodles and really liked it with the knife-​cut flat noodles. I got the Buckwheat noodle soup with lamb and it was delicious! I kind of wish there was more noodles to the soup ratio but it was still good and I would get it again if there wasn’t other stuff I wanted to try.

Come on guys, let’s be real. You don’t come here for the ambience (not horrible but a little Spartan) or service (not horrible but a little hard inattentive at times) — you come here for the outstanding food at good prices.
You have to try the house special wife noodles ($ 8). The beef noodle soup ($ 8) is large and comforting — the beef is tender, the noodles not extraordinary, the soup could have more flavor but helped by the onions and cilantro. Skip the beef roll (101 a few miles away is still king) and the meat ball with salt pepper ($ 7.95) — it’s just small, crispy oily balls of very fatty leftover meat (I know some of you are into that… hey, whateva floats your boat… and your third chin). The cold item portions ($ 6.50 for a trio incl pork) are pretty generous, and the sliced potato salad is different and refreshing.
Overall, a must try. There is a wait if you come on the weekends. If you can’t stand the wait and give up, Café Fusion two doors down across the street is great.

First, don’t expect the lady to pick up your phone call during lunch time. Second, wait time is at least an hour regardless of dine in or take out so spend your 1-​hr lunch time wisely. I choose to go during «off peak» odd hours to avoid the wait. Third, you can’t always get what you want — expect the dish you want to order to run out (dumplings for example). Ordered the wife’s noodle with knife cut noodle for me and he lao style for my lady. Both were very tasteful and plenty. Green onion pie was seasoned well with crunchy edges and soft in the center. Will probably visit again if we happen to be in the neighborhood.

⁴⁄₅ for food. Noodles are very savory. Enough to share for two! Don’t forget to ask for the hand cut knife noodles. I would not recommend their lamb dumplings.
³⁄₅ for service. It’s a chinese restaurant. So it is as good as it can get. Friendly cashier though.
³⁄₅ for atmosphere. Place is small and clean.
No wifi at this location.

The food really does feel like home cooking. When I imagine being invited to someone’s home and the wife cooks up some delicious homestyle Chinese this is exactly what comes to mind.
We ordered the cold jelly, cold noodle with sesame, meatball entrée, and wife’s noodles.
Everything was exceptional and the wife even served us the food ^_​^ My favorite of the evening being the meatballs and the cold noodle with sesame.

We jokingly pronounced it «LaoZ» boy were we wrong.
What is the best recovery food after a long night out, Noodles! This place has 3 different type of noodles and I had to try them all.
There were only three of us but decided to 4 noodles dishes, dumplings, onion pancakes and the 3 item appetizer. The waitress asked to re-​consider our order since the portions are pretty big. We said we should be OK…
Appetizers: plentiful but typical fare
Dumplings: good but not great, too much veggies in there
Onion Pancake: pretty good, not too greasy and not too doughy
Lao Xi’er #13: it was delicious, it was the first dish that came out and we killed it, good flavor and texture of noodles. The noodles are flat like hand cut noodles at other places I have had.
Lao Xi’er Stewed Noodles #8: Noodles in soup with stewed beef, kinda like beef noodle soup from Taiwanese places but not as good in my opinion. Broth is clean and light but I would of liked a little more flavor but still done very well for people that want something light.
Wife’s Special Noodle #18: This dish was probably our favorite, I was the same noodles as #8 but in a sauce instead of a broth. The flavors and texture was amazing, better than most saucy noodles I have had in the past, we were full but wanted more.
Buckwheat Noodle in Lamb Soup #11: Noodles are buckwheat and also ear shaped regular noodles, done well but very gamey. This is the only dish we did not finish, biggest reason was we were probably full but I can only handle so much gamey-​ness.
The waitress came back and was pretty impressed with how much we finished, the great food, good service and the value made up for a couple of dishes that was OK at best. Overall a solid 4 to 4.5
Time for a nap…

You’re guaranteed to have big portion here. Had the Pork and Leek dumplings and the Wife Noodle orders to go. Both the orders were average (taste wise). Nothing bad and nothing amazing either.
the dumplings were plentiful and was flavorful but there were way too much chives than pork. And the chives itself had some spiciness to it. Not sure if i’d order this one again.
The wife noodle was pretty good at first then it was just way too much… i dont think i can finish one order on my own and the taste just got boring and just too much of that bean paste flavor towards the end.

Really Good Customer Service!
Almost ridiculously good for an asian place. I mean it felt genuine too, not like they are trying to hard but truly are just kind people !
I had lunch with a gf and her new born and we were placed right in front of the air con and the server quickly called upon a gentlemen to move the air vent so that it isn’t blowing directly in our faces.
These kind gesture did not stop there, we originally wanted to order 2 plate of noodles and 2 side dishes and she quickly suggest us to only order 1 plate of noodle because it will be way too much for the two of us. Not to selly and guess what the noodle dish was huge in portion !
I really enjoyed the fact that they had a lot of options for vegetarians and everything was about $ 20 which was greatly priced.

If you like sauce and noodles, then this place is for you. If you also like tattoos, you can go next door because this place is located in a shopping center that is kind of on the outskirts of Arcadia.
Wife’s Special Noodles– Comfort food aka food coma. I’m not sure if this is meant as one serving, but you’ll definitely be sleepy if you ate the whole thing. I really like this dish. It was covered in meat and a tomato egg sauce mix.
Pork and Napa dumplings– Pretty good. the wrapper was the right consistency and had a nice slight chew.
Seaweed and tofu soup– Pass on this one. Kind of bland
Beef Noodle Soup– Really tasty and the beef was super tender.
There’s only one girl that works the cash register and waits the tables. She’s really nice.
Accepts Mastercard/​VISA.

We must have been lucky the day we came because we didn’t wait at all!
Came here with the in laws and hubby. I got the Wife’s Noodles since every one raved about them. The bowl was pretty massive! It comes presented all pretty and separated but you need to mix up the bowl. To me, it was sort of earthy/​tasted of something fermented but I’m not 100% sure. I did enjoy it though!
We also ordered the fried meat balls. If you’re not sure what to order, this is definitely a tasty dish to share. The Cold Jelly was good with the chili oil, although we were all wondering what exactly the jelly was. (:S) I wish I tried the green onion pancake but I guess we forgot to order it. :(No worries, I’d come back again!

A friend suggested that we have lunch at the recently opened LaoXi Noodle House. The restaurant is a Mom & Pop store located on Live Oak in Arcadia. The menu is simple but does not have your familiar noodle items and I am glad that our friends knew what to order.
Things to order:
House Special Fried Noodles excellent Pork and veggies very large portion.
Wife’s Special Noodles is a dry noodle dish with three different sauces that get mixed together.
Veggie Tofu Soup. goes well with all the fried and dry noodles.
Green Onion Pancake made to order and comes out steaming hot.
Fried Beef Meatballs like beef tater tots very good huge portions for an appetizer.
The other sliced stewed meats appetizer items are just meh.
Service is minimal. Get you own water. Parking is easy with parking in the strip center. The place got very busy with people waiting at 12:30.

I read about the Wife Special Noodle dish on a blog somewhere, and then about the importance of handmade Chinese noodles and how well they are done here… so I gave it a shot.
Wife Special Noodle is the epitome of Asian-​style comfort food. I would compare it to heaping bowl of grandma’s spaghetti. It’s a generous serving of homemade noodles that by them selves are filling and tasty but then it’s topped with two kinds of pork, tomato and egg… you mix it all up and since ordering it three times I have yet to finish a bowl. I always bring it home and enjoy it again later.
Why is it called Wife Special Noodle? The husband/​wife team that own this tiny humble establishment were brought together because of this dish. They were once platonic childhood friends and one day in college she prepared this tasty dish for him… and at once he realized this was the woman of his dreams. These are noodles that inspired a marriage!
Everything else on the menu is pretty good too, but I’m a fan of the love-​noodles.

One of the newest spots to pop up in the SGV and it’s pretty good. Here is why.
Zha Jian Mian: Not the best I’ve had but not the worst. Somewhere in between. The noodles were too thin in my opinion and the sauce was a bit bland
Wife noodles: Combine Tomato + Egg + Zha Jiang sauce = Wife noodles. Pretty tasty. Definitely get this when you come here.
House special Fried noodles: DELICIOUS. I liked this cause it’s hand cut noodles. I’m all about the THICK NOOODLES… DAO XIAO STYLE.
Scallion pancake: Pretty flaky and crispy. I liked it.
Lamb Soup: I felt like it lacked flavor and tasted a bit too gamey for my taste.
*Good spot. Check it out.
**Big ups to the J QUAD SQUAD + YT…

This place is amazing!!! I read about this place from EaterLA article. I finally got to try it last weekend.
It was packed on Saturday night.
We (two people) ordered Hun Yuan Cold Jelly, Wife’s Special Noodle with fried pork, green onion pancake, and meatballs. We did indeed order too much and had to take meatballs home.
Cold jelly was delicious! Wife’s Special Noodle was out of this world. It tasted like spaghetti but better!
The service was a bit slow because there were not enough employees working, but the employees were friendly.

Green onion pancakes– it was good, thin and crispy. A bit oily, but the green onion taste was there.
Beef ball noodle soup– this is good, far better than their wife’s special noodles. These noodles were soft and slimy. The beef soup was good and so was the beef surprisingly.
Wife’s special noodles– that reviewers keep posting, they look delicious but it tasted alright. I would not order it again. It had a tomatoe flavor sauce, which reminded me of spaghetti. The noodles even look like spaghetti but it had a different texture. The noodles were a bit chewy, udon style. The ingredients were eggs in that tomatoe sauce, fried pork belly, and minced beef. I mixed the entire dish together and that tomatoe flavor was overpowering everything.
Probably would not go out of my way to return here but it was a few miles from the mall.
Cons-​you had to ask for napkins and you get one, you ask for water and they show you a water dispenser where you go pour it yourself. I’m okay with that but for a Chinese place, it’s not common.

I had a wonderful date with Jennifer H here a while back and we feasted like kings. This is a small place with a small lot, but the wait and parking is not terrible. You are only slightly inconvenienced. I initially didn’t notice there was a sign-​in sheet as it was with the lady behind the counter… at the back of the restaurant where the cash register is. However, she was good enough to have noticed me (not even sure how she saw me, to be honest) and put my name down first as some other people rushed past me after I was waiting for a bit. Thank you, lady. I was really hungry.
Service is actually very kind here, however. Though there are two servers, what almost seems to be the dad and the daughter maybe, they try to get everything out as quickly as possible and are so incredibly kind. That’s why I like mom-​and-​pop shops, besides the food.
We started off with the 3-​ingredients plate and we were able to get up to the see what to choose in their little display section. We got seaweed, cucumber and shredded potato. I haven’t ever had the potato but Jennifer H is a huge fan. She recommended that I use a bit more vinegar for it since it is not as dressed up as it should be, and it was interesting. The cucumber was my favorite, though. They also packed on a lot of these items on our plate, so that was nice.
Wife’s Noodle is their popular dish and it has minced pork and pork belly in a tomato-​based sauce. This was very delicious and the sauce is definitely something I crave. They went well with the springy noodles.
Next up, we got the Meatball with Spicy Sauce, but it’s more like salt and pepper instead of a sauce. This was interesting and it had some meat flavor but tasted more like a combination of radish and fat. I spoke with my coworker who initially recommended the place and he said that it is similar to a certain type of flour that is used in Burmese cooking, so maybe it’s more flour? Otherwise, this was good and I would drink this with beer, whatever it is.
Jen got the Mao er’duo style buckwheat noodle in lamb soup, which was huge. The soup was practically overflowing. It was very simple, containing lamb, wood ear mushroom, potato, button mushroom and ear-​shaped noodle/​dough. Really not a huge fan of this, but great to have when you’re sick.
We also ordered a couple of things to go, an appetizer and one or two main dishes. All of this was about $ 40 before tax and it was a good deal for all the leftovers we took home. I really enjoyed the Wife’s Noodle and would come back just for that even if most of their dishes were not that bold in flavor.

Handmade Chinese noodles? Yes, please! Serving up authentic Northern Chinese cuisine, LaoXi Noodle House is one of the newest additions to the 626. The owner of the restaurant hails from Shanxi, an area known for its prowess in noodle making. In other words, this place is the OG of the noodle world.
My brother and I both ordered the Wife’s Special Noodles. Not sure if he was the owner, but the person who helped us asked us if we were willing to try the dishes with 2 different noodles and let him know which one we liked better. One of the dishes came the skinny, round noodles, while the other was more curly and flat. Although the skinny, round noodles are what they originally serve, I actually enjoyed the curly, flat noodles a little better. Our waiter agreed as well, so maybe they’ll be serving this instead in the future, who knows? This dish came with fried pork belly, minced meat and scrambled eggs with tomato, which you’re supposed to mix up into a delicious sauce. This sauce combined with the perfect al dente texture of the noodles makes it easy to see where this dish got its name. If you ever find someone who can make noodles as tasty as this, you better put a ring on it!
We also had a Green Onion Pancake on the side. Crispy edges, chewy layers of dough flavored with all that green onion goodness, this made a nice little side dish to curb the richness of our noodles.

This is food from the Shangxi region of China. What that really means, I don’t actually know. This is what I’ve tried and enjoyed:
Cold Appetizers. You can pick them from the display case. Very neat is their pig skin tofu, which is particularly buoyant and springy. Their cucumber is incredibly garlicky.
Pork and Chive Dumplings. Nice and chivey and not much excess seasoning in the form of MSG.
Lamb ear noodles. Loved to try it but not a fav. It has a very light, subtle lamb broth and both glass noodles and thick, ear shaped noodles.
Stir fried noodles with pork. A total comfort food hit.
House Special Noodle with twice cooked pork and a tomato sauce. Super interesting combination of two sauces, one soy sauce based and the other tomato. It’s good with big homemade noodles.
Pork Meatballs — addictive and good with the salt and pepper seasoning but not much in the way of pork. It seems like they are starch/​flour based but as mentioned, quite addictive.

I’ve become an instant fan of this place. The food generally tastes great, and is priced very affordably relative to their portion sizes and quality. *Every* dish here is under $ 10USD.
I was particularly impressed by their Pork & Leek Dumplings (*very* leek-​y), Meat Ball with Spicy Sauce (it actually wasn’t spicy, tastes like Peking Style Pork Chops without the sweet sauce), Green Onion Pancakes, and Wife’s Special Noodle with Fried Pork (the noodles are conspicuously well-​made). You cannot go wrong with any of these dishes.
The staff members are universally friendly, but you’re on your own as far as getting water goes (from a lemon-​infused self-​serve dispenser at the counter). Napkins are also a self-​serve affair (dispensers at each table).
Parking in front can be a bit tight, especially on a busy night. According to a posted sign, your meal must be paid by cash if the bill is under $ 20. The seating is not the most uncomfortable I have ever sat on, but it still leaves something to be desired.
Overall, in spite of some minor quibbles, I am going to award this place 5 stars. The folks working here seem very enthusiastic (they make you feel like you’re at home, and you can’t help but like them), and they provide you with delicious and filling meals at very reasonable prices. At the time of this writing, they are a relatively new restaurant, and I wish them success in their entrepreneurial venture.

A legit mom and pop (+baby) shop.
What an interesting experience. I’d like to state that the food wasn’t bad, but it was the service that led to this 2 stars. The two of us came on a Saturday night. The place wasn’t too busy, and there was a dirty table available when we got in. The guy (pop) told us to sit at the dirty table. and didn’t immediately clean it. It was a while later that he came back to clean the table and handed us one menu.
The menu has some non-​descriptive English names with no pictures. Being able to read some Chinese and with the photos on the wall, the two of us decided to get the pork and leek dumplings, lamb «cat ear» noodle soup, and hun yan cold jelly (which didn’t come).
With only the pop working and the mom+baby standing by the cash register, our orders sat out on the counter for a while before they came. And actually before they came, they made a round to the 6 tables at the restaurant. The guy didn’t seem to have a system to track the orders yet. The cold jelly got lost in the midst of this mess. Dumplings were average and not especially juicy. The lamb «cat ear» noodle soup was a bit oily, and I didn’t like how they added potatoes to sort of fill up the bowl.
The experience became entertaining as the mom+pop try to figure out the orders and implement a numbering system while juggling around with a new born baby. The pop finally came by at the end of our meal to ask if our order was completed. Maybe he realized that we might be missing an order? Since it wasn’t on our check, we let it go.
Water is self served and cleanliness is questionable. I really hope they do well cause the food wasn’t bad and they have a baby to support. Good luck.