Jason Wang was supposed to go corporate. Instead he drove back from the Midwest, moved his things out of the car in a day, and started working in his father's noodle stall the next morning.

Twenty years on, Xi'an Famous Foods is a New York institution, and the spicy cumin lamb noodles are one of the city's signature dishes. But it began as a bubble tea shop in Flushing, because his father wasn't sure New Yorkers would want food this spicy and this heavy on cumin, and wanted a hedge. Within six months the food was outselling the tea.

Tiffany Pham sits down with Jason over the dish that made him famous. They talk about his father, still the keeper of the recipe and the only person who makes the chili oil. About the thirty proprietary spices, some so obscure they don't have names. About the nights he drove his staff home to Flushing after thirteen-hour days, and the one where an employee started crying in his car and he realised he was just as tired. And about a young woman from Xi'an who came to New York alone at nineteen and ate the same bowl of beef noodle soup at his East Village store because it tasted like her parents' house.

Asked whether he feels like he belongs here now, he says no, not entirely, and probably not for another ten or twenty years. Then he explains why that isn't a sad answer.

Savor with Tiffany Pham, a Representation podcast production, is a companion to the television docuseries Savor with Tiffany Pham premiering in 2027. Cinematography by: Kym Pham.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Meeting Jason, and the dish that made them famous
02:14 Inside the bowl: the noodles, the lamb, 30 spices
04:01 The scar from a lamb skewer
05:35 Why it went viral
07:23 His father, keeper of the recipe
09:21 "I always feel a bit of an imposter"
10:21 Every complaint still goes to his phone
13:23 A bubble tea shop in Flushing
16:12 The Golden Shopping Mall stall
17:27 Bourdain, 2007
17:42 Leaving corporate, driving back from the Midwest
21:01 On belonging
22:42 Legacy, 20 years in
23:42 The hardest moments
26:02 Driving his employees home
29:18 How to savor it
31:23 What he eats at home
33:53 Rapid fire: pho, pizza, burgers, cake

ABOUT XI'AN FAMOUS FOODS
Xi'an Famous Foods — xianfoods.com

🎬 The Savor with Tiffany Pham docuseries premieres in 2027.
🌐 savortheuniverse.com

Click here to view the episode transcript.