Biang! Opens In Flushing - NYC

The new Biang! in Flushing looks quite different from its sister restaurants, Xi'an Famous Foods.

There are waitresses, modern decor and cute cartoons of noodle-slurping pandas to admire during the inevitable wait for a table.

Thankfully, the flavors–and blessedly low prices–are the same. Here, the menu runs deeper and wider, the air smells of cumin, the dishes include pools of hot chile oil and our tongues hum with the buzz of Szechuan peppercorns.

Folds of tofu skin come skewered and slathered with sesame paste, garlic and chile oil ($3). Sunny-side-up quail eggs sit pretty on rounds of Chinese sausage and toasted steamed buns ($5), 
and a cold salad of fiddlehead ferns gets its zing from black vinegar ($5).

And we declare that this year's ugly-duckling-dish award decisively goes to ripped bits of flatbread boiled in lamb-bone broth ($7.50). The soup, filled with lamb meat bobbing among soft pieces of the bread, looks like gray mop water. But the taste is a downy pillow of pure comfort.

Biang!, 41-10 Main St., Queens; 718-888-7713 or biang-nyc.com