Introduction

If you’re a food fan in New York City, you might already know a bit about the Xi’an¹ Famous foods story. It goes a little like this: In the winter of 2005, a hardworking immigrant named David Shi (aka my dad) opened a shop in Flushing, New York, to sell boba, or bubble tea—you know, those chewy tapioca pearls plopped into a mixture of sugar, powdered tea, and water, sometimes with flavored syrup for that fake mango taste. But in New York City, even back then, bubble tea shops were a dime a dozen, and competition was fierce. So my dad, ever the hustler, pivoted. He rented a tiny little space and started selling the food of our hometown: Xi’an, China.