Article Text

Chin’s Xi’An Style Restaurant is planning an August 2026 opening inside the 99 Ranch Market at 10780 Fairfax Blvd. in Fairfax City.

The restaurant would be the Maryland-based company’s third location, joining establishments in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Jersey City, New Jersey. An exact opening date has not been announced.

The Fairfax restaurant plans to offer takeout, while customers who want to eat on-site will be able to use the grocery store’s seating area. Its menu and service arrangements could change before opening.

Chin’s specializes in home-style dishes inspired by Xi’an, the capital of China’s Shaanxi province. Its food includes liangpi and hand-ripped wheat noodles, along with a flatbread sandwich described by the restaurant as a 12-hour braised pork murger.

One featured dish is the three-in-one hand-ripped noodles, which combines hot-oil-seared noodles, pork zhajiang bean sauce and tomato egg. Fairfax general manager Shuyan Zhang recommends serving the noodles with plum juice.

“I wanted something sweet. I wanted something a little sour, and a little spicy flavor,” Shuyan Zhang said.

He also emphasized the difference he finds between freshly prepared food and packaged alternatives.

“The house-made and commercial product is totally different. House-made will have more flavor,” he said.

Founder Landy Zhang recommends the braised pork murger. Her path to opening the restaurant began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she made liangpi and left containers of the noodle dish at friends’ homes.

“I wanted to eat something that just makes me happy,” Landy Zhang said.

She went on to open the first Chin’s Xi’An Style Restaurant in Ellicott City in 2023. According to Landy Zhang, the word “Chin” in the restaurant’s name refers both to the Qin dynasty and to an everyday name for the Shaanxi region.

Shuyan Zhang, who is also from Shaanxi, will manage the planned Fairfax location. He was pursuing a master’s degree in Maryland when he first encountered the restaurant. He said he drove about 40 minutes from his Rockville home to try the Ellicott City location before later becoming involved with the Fairfax expansion.

Although Shuyan Zhang and Landy Zhang have the same surname, they are not related.

The Fairfax opening remains planned rather than confirmed, and the available information does not include independent confirmation from 99 Ranch Market or public permitting records. The company has not provided a specific opening day within August.