Ox 9

Behind a glass window at the front, a cook rolls dough into cylinders and stretches it into noodles. David Liu learned the trick in Lanzhou and opened a shop there in 2012. The noodles boil for thirty seconds. The beef broth under them takes twenty hours and close to thirty ingredients.

Why go

Elena Kadvany covered the opening for the Chronicle in June 2022 and said nothing else nearby was doing it: Ox 9 appears to be the first restaurant on the Peninsula and one of only a handful in the Bay Area dedicated to this style of fresh, hand-pulled noodles from northwestern China.1 Liu opened his first American shop in Milpitas in 2017, Cupertino in 2021, and this one in 2022.1 Owner Nina Qu told her the staff need a decade to learn the pull, to know the proportions, the temperature and the ingredients well enough.1 The broth is where the twenty hours go. Kadvany put it at nearly 30 ingredients; the paper's San Mateo guide said no fewer than 28.1 2 Qu's reason for choosing this city was that it is a food-centric city with 'a lot of noodle lovers.'1

Order this / avoid

Order: the classic beef soup. Kadvany describes what lands: the slightly yellow noodles arrive in a clear broth with paper-thin slices of beef, a bright red chile oil, green herbs and translucent daikon slices.1 Those five colors are what a Lanzhou bowl is supposed to look like.1
Pick a different width every time. Six shapes run from a thin round noodle near ramen to a flat one the Chronicle compares to pappardelle. The guide sends you to the flat one, which cling[s] to punchy chile oil.1 2
Order it dry once. The same noodles come brothless, dressed in chile oil or with spicy ground pork.1
Get the cucumbers with garlic sauce, which the Chronicle calls crunchy and tangy.2
Avoid: waiting for someone to take your order. It is a QR code at the table, though servers still bring water and talk you through the widths.1

What locals & experts say

The Chronicle gave it a headline slot in its San Mateo guide, over every ramen shop in the city: For a restaurant that opened with zero promotion, Ox 9 was remarkably full on its second day of business in downtown San Mateo.2
What the guide says the room is for: Springy noodles pulled by hand are Ox 9's specialty, and a rarity on the Peninsula.2
Kadvany, checking in again in January 2025, still had the group among the few in the Bay devoted to the style, with San Mateo in its door list.3

Good to know

Where it is. 11 S. B St., at the edge of downtown, a short walk from the Caltrain station.1 4
After lunch, the Chronicle's guide sends you a block down to B Street Books.2
Six doors now. This is one of them. The group also runs Fremont, Milpitas, Cupertino, Santa Clara and, since the start of 2025, Mountain View.3

Verdict

should-visit — Walk down from the Caltrain platform, stand at the window until you have watched one pull, then order the beef soup and pick a flat noodle. The Chronicle gave this room one of three headline slots in its 2022 San Mateo guide, over every ramen shop in the city, on the argument that nothing else on the Peninsula does this. One paper is the whole record on this kitchen, and it has not been back since 2022.