Impressive 1915 Lanzhou Beef Noodles in Hurstville Australia

By Niyaz Mostafa

Not many fully Halal Chinese restaurants in Australia’s Sydney

In a space where there has been a relative lack of Halal Asian food in Australia’s Sydney, Xinjiang and Uyghur cuisine were one of the early options to address this gap.

Although 1915 Lanzhou Beef Noodles is one example that opened relatively early within this timeframe, there has been a significant increase of these style of restaurants as time has gone by.

Just outside Hurstville shopping centre in the heart of the town centre is a new and modern communal space with office buildings at the base of one which is located 1915.

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With a well-lit signage indicating the restaurant’s Halal status affixed to its glass-walled exterior, the venue has a seating capacity of 40-50 people.

While an open kitchen greeted us with chefs busily dancing around weaving handmade noodles, the place also has a small prayer room with mats situated upstairs.

The interior is composed of simple wooden tables, chairs, and Chinese-inspired décor comprising of blue China bowls, porcelain and traditional artwork.

Lamb Skewer, $3.00 per skewer

This lamb skewer wasn’t just well priced at $3 a skewer, but is also an iconic dish amongst the cuisine of northwest China’s Lanzhou city.

Given its reasonable portion size, this was presumably served straight off the grill as perfectly cooked, medium rare pieces of tender lamb and lamb fat.

With an outer cumin and chilli based seasoning that penetrated the lamb well, this flavourous dish was good enough to have twice over.

The only point of criticism would be the use of cumin in its seed form, which turned out to be a nuisance. While providing texture, it tended to either fall off the meat or get stuck between the teeth.

Lanzhou Beef Noodle Soup, $14.90

With the customer being able to customise the thickness of the noodle and the spice levels, this Lanzhou Beef Noodle Soup is, overall, quite simple, with only a few ingredients: handmade noodles, slices of beef, some radish, green onion garnish, and chilli catered to your preference.

The highlight and focus of the dish is definitely the savoury broth with its subtle yet distinct flavours courtesy of the raw ingredients used therein, including beef, vegetables and Asian spices.

The soup was clear and did not feel heavy, working well to complement the meat and noodles; the latter being soft and chewy, and acting to soak up the flavours of the broth and added chilli.

With the radish and green providing additional flavour and texture, the thin slices of lightly seasoned beef were further improved by the flavours of the broth, and were simply delicious.

Beef Salad, $5.90

While there’s only a few side dishes to choose from, it seems likely that the cold slices of beef in this Beef Salad were cut from a larger roast.

Although not overly seasoned and quite simple in its profile, it still managed to retain much of the flavours already described above in spite of it being cold. We ended up deciding to add these to the above noodle soup to really bring out its full potential.