Xi'an

Xi'an
197 Banbury Rd
Oxford, OX2 7AR



My very first restaurant meal in Oxford was Xi'an. Arriving in 2003 as a bright eyed and bushy tailed postgraduate fresher, my family and I went for a quick Chinese meal at Xi'an. Totally unimpressed and slightly aghast at the Oxford prices for generic food, I didn't have the heart to return till 2005, when hungry and out of sorts, a friend and I went to the only Chinese in Summertown. That was almost a half decade ago, and some friends and I decided to investigate Xi'an again.



Showy shelves full of empty bottles. From the higher end Cloudy Bay whites, to the masses of Dom Perignon, to the sake:



To show the opulence of the restaurateur? The clientele? No idea. These wines weren't even on the menu!



The well-stocked bar. Because there's nowhere better than a Chinese restaurant for cocktails!



Ubiquitous prawn crackers served with the menu. Nothing to fault as they were crisp and dry - not at all greasy.



Flowers of rice-puff.



More than one bottle of 'Kiwi Cuvee' was consumed, and spilt, that night.



We settle for everybody's favourite: set menu C with extra prawn cracker. What's on the menu? who knows.



Mixed entrees of vegetarian spring rolls, sticky ribs, chicken wings and 'C' weed. Not bad, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not, but at least it was fairly tasty and filling, without the usual quantities of grease, despite being deep fried dishes.



Next up: lettuce wraps with pork filling. Very nice, in fact. My evening was definitely looking up.



Trimmings for the duck. Can one eat out in Britain without the crispy duck?



Mmmm, deep fried to oblivion, the duck was surprisingly moist on the inside, with a great crispy texture.



Sweet sauce.



Pancakes



Shredded and yum.



A attacked the remnants of a wing. Minimum duck and maximum crisp. Yumm-o.



The mains turned out to be highly disappointing. The lo-han (meaning monk's) duck was just a medley of vegetables (hence reference to monk) with pieces of pre-cooked duck. Stringy duck with what is meant to be a vegetarian dish. Confusing.



At least I love the little straw mushrooms. Tinned, but I do love them so.



Fairly standard fried rice.



Some sort of chicken. I think it was described as Sichuan, but was more akin to Jamie Oliver cooking Chinese than anything I've seen in China.



Or maybe it was meant to be sweet and sour. Who knows.



The only vegetable dish was the deep fried vegetables. Crisp batter, but also soggy with oil, this was a far cry from the impeccable deep frying we'd seen earlier. Maybe chef was outside, scratching himself, and the waitress had to make this herself.



Beef (or was it meant to be lamb?) in a bird's nest: the meat was so thin, fried and chewy that it was impossible to tell what was in there. Possibly it was all batter - I do not know. The sauce was sickly sweet, possibly left over from the ribs earlier, and the nest was a dense, jaw breaking mound of noodles rather than a wispy potato or vermicelli creation.



Don't order it, you will regret it in the morning.

There were a couple of other totally forgettable, and definitely non-Chinese dishes. Everything was greasy, sickly, sweet and sticky. Unfortunately a full glass of wine was sent racing across the table to land all over me, and my genial photo-journalistic mood was spoiled by the loss of my salvation to the evening.

The damage: around £15 per head for bad set menu, or around £20 for a more expensive but no better set menu. Best to just avoid this place like the plague in the first place. As an aside: Xi'an accepts the Gourmet Society card. Avoid it anyway.