Northwest Chinese Food

Hot and hotter may well be the mantra of this chili-stoked cafe where the walls are a collage of color and texture. Ideally, we’d have one of everything, but usually we home in on nibbles such as pungent black-vinegar pea­nuts, cuminy lamb sandwiches on flaky flatbread, and a chili-doused, egg-wrapped sausage on a stick, dubbed a “sausage eggy.” Then it’s on to bigger things, such as lamb noodle soup with wood-ear mushrooms or a slyly addictive layered dish of knife-cut noodles with an egg pancake on top and a pool of spicy broth beneath. Housemade fruity drinks in sorbet shades—we like the pineapple-cucumber sparkler—cool down the heat.