• By admin
• February 28, 2024
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Northwest Chinese Food

 – A variety of “burgers,” or rou jia mo, at Northwest Chinese Food in College Park, Md.

What to order? A newbie could refer to the window, covered with photos of dishes, or the wall near the entrance, plastered with rave reviews. I’m inclined to check out what my Chinese neighbors are eating as I make my way to a table in this busy storefront in the shadow of the University of Maryland.


Noodles, definitely something with noodles, are in my future. Steaming knife-cut noodles, cooked to retain some bite, coil beneath a cover of crumbled pork, shot through with garlic and black vinegar, everything cooled with torn romaine lettuce. The kitchen, under the watch of chef-owner Hua Wang, makes its own liang pi, wheat-flour noodles. I wouldn’t think of leaving without a “burger,” or rou jia mo, either. The chewy bread is baked in-house, twice a day, and makes a great companion to a filling of crumbled lamb, warm with cumin, sweet with onion and hopping with jalapeños. Then there are dumplings to consider. Make mine pork dumplings draped with a creamy blanket of sesame seeds and lit with chile oil.



The owner is from Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province in China, where she ran a noodle restaurant before coming to the United States in 2007. Wang says she opened Northwest Chinese Food in 2015 as a way to introduce people to the food she ate and loved growing up in a part of China known for its bold flavors and Korean influences. Indeed, there’s housemade kimchi in the restaurant’s little market within the dining room, which also sells Chinese candy and snacks and three kinds of Wang’s chile oil.


I’m reminded this is a student hangout when the college kid waiting on a table of his cost-conscious peers asks whether they’re ready for their check: “Together or separate?” I’m also reminded not to go solo on my next visit. Wang’s food begs to be shared.


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Photo courtesy of Northwest Chinese Food