Yu Xiang Yuan

Been here a dozen times so far and I’ve always enjoyed the food. The restaurant itself is simple (okay, it can use a makeover) but that’s not the reason I choose a restaurant. There is never a line-​up here so that’s always a plus. Parking is never great but they do have parking in the back. The spaces are sometimes taken by people who are not patrons of the place. I digress. Let’s get back to the food. I have had the dumplings, fried noodles, fried rice, hot and sour soup, soup noodles, fried chicken, broccoli and beef, sweet and sour chicken balls, and beef rolls. They are all good and reasonably priced. My favourite is the hot and sour soup. The staff is pleasant and courteous. Will be back again soon.

Awesome alternative to Peaceful! They even have the same sign outside LOL!
We ordered the knife sliced noodles, pan fried dumplings, xlb, and fried pork belly. The noodles, pan fried dumplings and pork belly were BOMB. The xlb, not so much.
Definitely order the pan fried dumplings. They’re not your average dumplings, they’re huge, doughy, and thick, with a crispy bottom! YUMMMMM
The knife sliced noodles were on point. Very comparable to Peaceful’s.
Love it!

Want to complain about the simple décor or casual service? Take the silver spoon out out your hand and focus on what’s on the golden plate. Do you know how difficult it is to make hand made authentic Chinese noodles. I bet you don’t. This place is so legit, and I don’t think most people in Vancouver even know it. Awesome flavors and textures to the noodles. If you stuck these noodles in a swanky looking restaurant in San Francisco you would get $ 20 a plate USD ($ 25 CAD). Here You’ll leave happy with you belt and pockets full. A must try if you’re in S. Vancouver.

Came here with the hubby tonight because we wanted a tasty noodle place. We’ve seen this place before and it usually looks busy so we decided to give it a try.
Décor:
Your typical Chinese noodle restaurant. Nothing fancy but clean and comfy.
Service:
Quick, attentive and professional. English and Mandarin speaking servers.
Food:
We ordered:
–Hot and sour soup: good. Nothing spectacular. I prefer the one from Long’s Noodle House on Main & 33^rd.
–Green onion pancake: delicious! My favourite of the items we ordered. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside without the gross greasy feel these pancakes sometimes have.
–Pork and bok choy dumplings: good. Filling was fresh and portions were fair.
–Beef and veggie cutting noodle in soup: good. The noodles tasted very fresh.
Value:
All items came to $ 28 before tax and tip. Portions were fair to large. Good value.
Final take:
Fresh tasting and good service. Definitely a place we will come back to.

First of all don’t go with preconceived ideas about what typical Chinese food is. This place specializes in northern Chinese cuisine.
They have this amazing display where you can watch them make the noodles by hand.
I’ve attached a few videos.
–garlic zucchini: amazing sesame sauce and it’s got quite a kick.
!! Don’t order Shanghai food because that’s not what they specialize in — hot and sour soup doesn’t not have enough sourness and they put Chinese parsley in there which is not the traditional Shanghai cuisine
–all sorts of noodles are very authentic and you can really appreciate the fact that they are handmade
Good lively atmosphere and really hearty food

Tasty for a reason.
went to this restaurant to try something new. Didn’t know what to expect but based on the Unilocal reviews, I decided to give this place a try as it’s close to home.
The food was quite tasty and we were pretty pleased with the portion sizes and the taste.
However, afterwards, I think I know why it was tasty. We were extreme thirsty after about an hour. At first I had to think whether we ordered anything spicy which could cause this, we hadn’t and I can take very spicy foods. The simple answer to the puzzle is likely MSG and that’s probably why everything tasted so good.
May try this place again just to be sure

Best xiao long bao on 49^th and Fraser. Noodles are ok. Good place for lunch! Must order are xiao long bao, green onion pancakes and try the noodles because it’s what they’re known for

I’ve walked around this place and I’ve always wanted to try it. I finally got my chance to try Yu Xiang Yuan. Hmmm… I have to admit I was kind of disappointed.
Yu Xiang promotes the fact that they serve hand made noodles. In reality there is no discernible taste difference between hand made noodles and machine made noodles. To me the «hand made» assertion just gives the restaurant owners justification to charge their customers a bit more for dishes.
The food was not great! A friend and I shared 3 dishes. Two noodle dishes and a steam dumpling dish. The sad thing is that noodle dishes were small and not very tasty. We ended up going to a coffee shop right after eating at Yu Xiang and grabbing a donut and coffee.
I won’t be coming back to Yu Xiang Yuan again. I’m glad I tried it, but I did not enjoy my experience.

Heard good reviews about this place so thought we would give it a shot. Ordered the dragging noodle in soup with lamb. It was ok-​a little gamey. The cutting pan fried noodle with pork and pickled cabbage was very good. Will be back to try other dishes. Think I’ll stick to the dim sum items and pan fried noodles. It is a hole in the wall. I think I might do take out next time. Prices for dishes range from $ 10-​$ 12. Acceptable. They also take credit card!

Our first time to this place. The noodle dishes we had were tasty enough and the server we had was decent. We are familiar with northern Chinese food, so it is a heavier meal with lots of carbs (aka noodles). However, the Seafood n Tofu soup was not authentic with mainly lots of small bit of artificial crab meat and a few bits shrimp meat. Honestly, if you cant put on the real stuff, dont bother with filler dishes that are sub par. It is a turn off!!!
At the end, we had about ½ a dish of noodles that we wanted to take home. Now from a distance I saw the lady with a plastic apron (not our server) flip the noodles into a small square takeout box… when it was brought back to us, I didn’t look inside… me bad!
When I opened the box at home, only about a ¹⁄₃ of our noodles made it into the box! I knew she look a bit stunned when I saw her and now I know why!!! I suppose we will go back if we are desparately craving for this type of food and there are no others to be had. Until then…
PS: Note to self: At all Chinese restaurants actually, ask for a takeout box and pack the leftovers myself… always!

The noodles are served a bit harder than what most people may be used to. However, I personally prefer harder noodles, so I liked it. If you prefer noodles that are on the softer side, I would recommend choosing their one of their «thinner» noodle options (vs the super thick dragging noodles).
The noodles tasted good, and the portions are pretty good. I would recommend Yu Xiang Yuan, and I will be a repeat customer.

It was our first time to this restaurant and we were overall impressed. The place itself is not glamorous, but don’t be put off by that as their noodles are delicious. I really enjoyed the freshness of it.
We had a fired cut noodle dish with pork and Chinese mushroom, a dragging noodle in soup with beef bowl and xiao long bao for 3 persons, and we were stuffed at less than $ 9 each for dinner. That’s a great value! A must try for everyone. You can even watch the chef make your noodles as you wait. That, in itself, was an experience.

Over-​shooting our desired location for lunch I ended up past 49^th attempting to turn back North but then saw this place shining at me like a food truck in the middle of the desert, yes… we were hungry… did I say it was lunch? I was with the ‘nomnomnomnivore’ and we stood outside looking at the menu, the interior, and pulling up the trusty app to know what the heck we were getting ourselves into, pictures tell a thousand mouth watering words, and everyone who posted a shot here looked great, and so we walked in and seated right away.
Entering this place, you are not coming for any of the décor, this is your simple cheap out of the box type restaurant where even the specials that weren’t placed on the menu are printed from a color bubble jet on regular paper and stuck to the wall, to deem this a hole in the wall… it’s not that scum like to put, it’s actually comfortable in here. And while we were looking at the vast menu we decided on a few items at the same time the server (or part owner?) looked over as I was checking out pictures of the cumin lamb sticks they have here… and asked if I would like to have any, a plus for an observant eye… and onto the food!
I had a craving for the onion pancake and was surprised that it wasn’t the normal, get from your local T&T freezer, looking ones that were very thin and dry. They were plump and fluffy, with a nice golden outlook, and very filled with chopped onions stacked like pieces of pizza slices, each bite was nice and soft, yet hot. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, and wanted to eat more, yet knowing there was plenty more food to come and not to let this expand in my stomach.
The XLB’s came next, plopped in a small steamer, 6 suckers that probably expanded from the heating process as they were each touching eachother, when I see this I use extra care and caution when lifting these suckers away from their original home. The wrapping of these things were thicker than the standard ones I have tried, yet it kept in a good amount of the broth on each dumpling. The broth was well seasoned with ginger, it was good, but this wasn’t the reason I came in here.
The last item was the pork and chive dumplings, and when we ordered it our waiter asked if we wanted sour soup with it, we enquired what this was for and he advised that most Notherner’s usually have this soup with their dumplings (hey, might as well try something new to us!) but said the choice was up to us, so as anyone who would try new things… we did just that. When these things hit the table you could definitely tell they were handmade… the imperfections of each not looking like it’s sibling were apparent which always makes me happy, as it really doesn’t matter how the food looks, cause in the end it is the taste. Each of these 12 dumplings on the plate were flavourful, a little strong on the sodium but this is where the soup came into play. Each one packed with enough balance of dough from the outer layer and meaty pork… and flavoured with chives, munch munch and soon enough all gone. Because of the natural fats that would be coming out of the ground pork usually you would feel a little ‘slow’ after eating all these… hence the soup, which worked like drinking strong tea at dim sum, to cut the grease of your meal, and the slight sourness to bring your appetite back to eating another pocket size treat.
Not an area I would think of to find dumplings, let alone Northern Chinese food (correction to the reviewer who said something about this being a Shanghainese restaurant!) but a place I would think of to come back and try their hand pulled noodles, this was shown on the back of their menu, and the cumin lamb skewers that I still think of… until next time they say!

This place had me at «hand pulled noodles». I came here for lunch on a week day with a friend. We shared a green onion pancakes, XLB, pork and chive dumplings and a side of sour soup. We had no idea what sour soup was or how to eat it but since we were feeling adventurous, we ordered it.
The restaurant, though not quite up to date with interior décor, looks and feels well maintained and clean. I noticed a number of single-​person diners from various ethnic backgrounds having lunch here.
A short wait later the green onions pancakes arrived. My friend ordered this, not me as I am not a fan of green onions, especially in large quantities. Therefore I purposely selected a slice with the least amount of green onions. Green onions aside I love the dough. The dough was pan-​fried to golden; it was light, slightly crispy and had a great pleasant chew. If the filling was red bean paste instead of chopped green onions I would have gobbled it up in light speed. While we were working on the pancakes, XLB arrived.
XLB looked beautiful. They were shaped evenly in size. The skin was not as paper thin as what I expected but there was a good amount of steaming hot broth and the filling was well seasoned. I could taste minced ginger but overall the flavor was different, not in a bad way. I felt I was eating XLB from a very altered recipe beyond my recognition, but still very much edible.
The highlight of lunch were the pork and chives dumplings. They were delicious! The handmade dumpling dough was on the thicker side but it was very satisfying as the dough was cooked all the way through but not soggy. The filling had a good ratio of pork to chives. The seasoning was a tad salty but overall I enjoyed them. I asked our server for instructions to properly enjoy the sour soup. Our friendly server said there is no set rule, one can enjoy the dumplings first and sip sour soup on the side (alternate and repeat) or one can place the dumplings in the sour soup and have sour soup with every bite of dumplings. I tried both but the difference was marginal. I wouldn’t describe the sour soup as broth-​y but it wasn’t plain hot water either. The soup had some chopped green onions as garnish and the rest of the bowl was just some sort of clear liquid with vinegar. The soup did its job of cutting through potential greasiness from the minced pork fat bits in the dumplings.
The food was delicious, the service was speedy, friendly and attentive. We were in and out of there in under an hour and we had leftovers to pack home. I shall return to explore their other menu items shall I be in the neck of the woods.

A must-​try item here is the cumin skewers. Cumin anything is awesome, and they get it right here. Just as good as the ones you’d find at the night market. Special mention.

The only decent place in my neighbourhood to get cut noodles! I love thick noodles~~ the texture of the handcrafted cut noodles is so satisfying and so hard to find in Vancouver!
It’s a small place; The décor is relatively bare and simple but the seating is very comfy. I’ve had several dishes here but the one that stands out to me most is the spicy fried noodle with (fried) chicken and potatoes. It’s a huge plate for $ 12– I always take half home with me. I’m no expert on the other noodle types and I usually order the fried noodles (to clarify, the noodles aren’t fried; they’re cooked and stir fried with other things) because I’m not a huge fan of soup noodles.
The xiao long bao was disappointing though~ lacked flavour.
The service is hit and miss but usually very speedy.
This place is definitely worth visiting even if only for the fact that handcrafted Chinese noodles are hard to come by in Vancouver!

Solid 4 almost a 5 I would say this spot is a little gem at the end of the busy part of Fraser where you can get a delicious quality meal for a good price.
We had their Dan Dan noodles some dumplings and they were both great. It was about 10 minutes before they were closing (we didn’t know before walking in) and we were greeted nicely by a server, seated and ordered promptly. The hand pulled noodles were delicious and chewy almost on par with peaceful.
My girlfriend and I enjoyed it and we will be back for sure.

First off, I think someone needs to clarify that this place isn’t a «Shanghai-​nese» place. This is Northern Chinese cuisine which is another category on its own.
Having lived in Beijing for half a decade and having personally experienced northern China’s distinct tastes and flavours, my take on this place is that it is bang on and authentic with the all the dishes I have missed back in Beijing.
My favourite dishes that I would recommend, made just like I remembered are:
— Fried Lamb with Cumin (hot)
— Flavoured Starch Noodles with Shredded Chicken (FYI for those who haven’t had this dish before: This dish uses the clear, wide, flat noodles, mixed with peanut sauce and vinegar. Minced garlic usually goes with it, but the server usually asks if you want it added or not)
— Cold noodles mixed with chilli/​garlic sauce
While the various types of noodles may confuse you, my standbys as a noodle lover is the cutting noodles (for those who like their noodles chewier) and the dragging noodles. Their portions are decent and often bigger than expected
Great price for authentic Northern Chinese food!

This is a quaint little place at the south end of Fraser, just after 49^th. My friend and I ventured out here on a whim and suggestion. The restaurant itself is moderate in size but what makes this place truely remarkable is the fact they do hand pulled/​shaved noodles and a giant window in which you can watch the magic happen.
The cuisine and taste is mainland Chinese, with a strong emphasis on northern cuisine (Beijing). Since it was our first time, we asked for recommendations from our server. He recommended a bowl of lamb pulled noodle soup. Outside on the windows are pictures of some of the popular items they make. One of the pictures was a dish of suigao or steamed/​boiled dumplings. There were many variations but most of them were common flavours, so i ordered the lamb + vegi one.
When our food came, there was a strong sent of lamb and freshness. Personally, I was expecting something less flavourful from my dumplings but BAM! totally sent back in time to a sense of nostalgia. The dumplings were mixed with northern spices like cumin and carrots. Reminiscent of my days in shanghai where I ate one of the best food cart meat skewer of the same flavour. They didnt even require sauce because they were so flavourful. My friend’s noodles were just as tasty, the soup rich with the stewed lamb and al-​dante noodles. Much to her surprise, it also included a small mix of glass noodles too which was cool. The bowl of noodles was actually much more than she anticipated; in my eyes, it was about 1.5x the size of a regular ramen serving for the same price. I ended up eating some of it to help her but i didnt object, it was damn good.
I question myself as I write this why this place didnt deserve a Five. Based on my first experience, it was magical and totally deserves it, but some hidden factor unknown to myself is telling me Four… Four and a half! But in retrospect, it really does deserve a Five. I urge anyone around the neighborhood or willing to try a new place to give it a shot.
A nostalgic Four, out of Five!

Yu Xiang Yuan Restaurant is located on Fraser Street & 50^th. It has sign of advertising Chinese handcrafted noodles in front of the restaurant. We went there for lunch on Sun noon, they’re getting busy after we got seated.
We saw the tables around us dishes were so delicious and portion was huge! The staffs weren’t helpful and attentive!
We finally ordered few dishes as we wanted to try…
Mouthful chicken in chili oil — The chicken was ok and served in cold, but the chili oil was not spicy at all.
Tan tan noodles — a lot of peanut butter sauce and a little ground pork on top of noodles. The handcrafted noodles were good and fresh. Just not bouncy enough.
Steamed pork dumplings — Rough and fatty pork and think «skin» dumplings. Is that Northern style dumplings?
Pan fried dumplings — It was very crispy but greasy! It’s good and filling.
Double cooked pork with mixed vegetables — Fatty thin sliced pork with a lot of onion instead of cabbage.
Personally, I don’t like northern Chinese food either too much starch or too greasy. Probably return in 6 months after…