Yiwanmen

TOP 10 FAVORITES 🥇🥇 $10.85 for #2, spicy beef noodles. Yiwanmen is a hole in the wall spot. Literally translates into “1 bowl of noodles.” Add extra noodles for $2 more. Nominating this for the best noodle shop in Chinatown/Little Italy 🇮🇹. Authentic & bursting with flavor. 👍 January 2024: I’m a regular here now. The owner is a nice guy with good hospitality 🙏🏻 Update: As wonderful as it gets for noodles 😊

The hot and sour rice noodles (n4) were soooo goooood. Absolutely amazing flavor and a great value. This spot has some casual seating inside so can dine in/out. Excited to go back and try more.

I've had Yiwanmen (literally means "one bowl of noodles" in Chinese) on my list for ages, but somehow, I'd always forget about it when I'm in the area. I finally made a quick visit there about a month ago when I had a jian bing craving and was in Chinatown. Jian bing is a really delicious thin pancake that usually has egg, sesame seeds, scallions, hoisin sauce, hot sauce, a crispy flat cruller, amongst other savory fillings. It was a popular street food in China, but I haven't found one that tasted like the ones I'd had in Shanghai while in NYC other than one spot in Flushing. Well, now I know I can come to Yiwanmen for my jianbing fix because theirs is made to order and definitely brought me back to my days eating street food in Shanghai! A few days ago, I came back and ordered takeout:

Simple and no fuss small mom and pop shop with some seatings. The braised beef is so soft and the soup is not overly salted.

Got the braised beef noodles, Beijing noodles with soybean, a fish fillet crepe, and a pork belly crepe. Crepes were excellent and portion sizes could satisfy a hungry person. The noodles were also good, but I regretted not getting the spicy braised beef noodles.