Qin Cheng is a Chinese noodle house that is said to match the Max’s-Beef-Noodle-level legendary. Just like at Max’s, you can keep adding noodles and broth here to your heart’s content – and for free. The generous portions suggest honest, unbeatable value.
Restaurant Profile
🏷️ Name of the Restaurant: Qin Cheng (incl. menu)
📍 Adress: Herzog-Wilhelm-Straße 7, 80331 München
🍜 Style: Chinese Cuisine – cold sides, noodles cold/fried/with warm soup, vegetarian options etc.
💰 Price: approx. 15–25 € per person (including drinks & tips)
The shop has a cute modern-meets-traditional Chinese aesthetic that adds personality to the space.
Let’s dive in.
🍖 Beef Marrow Bones in Savory Sauce (酱香牛骨)
This side is one of their best dishes. It’s a byproduct of their daily broth-making— meaning it’s intensely flavorful, but also extremely limited.
The meat is gloriously bouncy, with a satisfying chew. Long, slow simmering coaxes out a deep, beefy essence from the bones, and that fragrant, almost primal bone aroma pulls you in before you even take a bite.
The umami soy flavor – layered, deep, and spiced – is built from soy sauce and slow-cooked blend of star anise, cinnamon, and other spices. It’s savory with a subtle, rounded sweetness that clings to every shred of meat and tendon.
The meat is nicely marbled with fat, and the tendons are soft, gelatinous. Don’t be shy—get your hands on the bones, and get a satisfying snap to uncover every last morsel hidden in the corners.
🍜 Biangbiang Noodles (𰻞𰻞面)
This dish features wide, hand-pulled ribbons of wheat noodles, bathed in a homemade broth flavored with Sichuan pepper, chili, fresh coriander, and spring onions, and drizzled with aromatic chili oil.
You can go meat or meatless here; we chose the vegetarian version with tofu and mushrooms.
The mushrooms are earthy and juicy, while the tofu—marinated to a soy-based flavor—has a slight chew. The noodles themselves are hearty and resilient—never mushy.
Fresh cilantro, shredded cabbage, and a few pickled zhacai (crunchy, sour, savory mustard root) surprise with bursts of texture and flavor.
The whole bowl glistens with a glossy, oily sheen – rich, but not greasy.
By default, it carries a gentle spice from the chili sauce. Add a splash of vinegar to brighten it up with an addictive tang!
🥢 Cold Noodles with Sesame Peanut Sauce (麻酱凉面)
This dish arrives with shredded carrots and cucumber on the side, letting you add as much or as little as you like. Same goes for the luscious sesame peanut sauce.
These noodles are chilled – each strand distinct, never clumpy—with a firm, springy texture that holds up against the rich sauce.
The sauce itself has a strong sesame fragrance – lightly sweet, deeply nutty, with a gentle heat if you drizzle on some chili oil.
Add a little vinegar, and it brightens into a lovely, tangy zing. Every mouthful is cool, satisfying, and refreshing.
Qin Cheng pulls their noodles by hand. You get to choose: thick or thin, dry-stir-fried or with warm broth. The Biangbiang Noodles here may not be as extra-wide and thick as those at Mama Bao, but they hold their own with a resilient chew. Noodle soups come with beef, chicken, tofu, eggplant, or mushrooms, with options split between meat, vegetarian, spicy mala, or tangy pickled-cabbage broths.
There’s a whole roster of cold appetizers too: marinated edamame, Bobo chicken (skewers bathed in aromatic chili oil), pan-fried tofu, and more.
If you’re in for an honest, satisfying meal, Qin Cheng will surely leave you with a full belly and a happy heart ❤️
Since they renovated, it feels like they also changed the chef. You can no longer choose the noodle thickness, and the texture isn’t really like proper hand-pulled noodles anymore.
The new tomato egg noodle was honestly terrible — extremely sour, with a strong vinegar taste. I like both sweet and savory versions of tomato egg noodles, but this overly acidic version just doesn’t work.
The spicy beef noodle soup also tastes different now. The broth feels like it has a heavy MSG aftertaste and is no longer as rich or fragrant as before. Overall, I’d rate it down to the same level as Max Beef Noodles now.
The chef was really friendly. We had no idea how wide the different noodle types like “erxi”, “sanxi”, or “jiuye” were supposed to be, so we just used our hands to show the width we wanted and he actually made them like that 😂 Later I looked it up and I think the “jiuye” noodles are about as wide as chives. The chef also explained that the thinner the noodles are, the softer they become.
Personally, I prefer chewier noodles. So far I’ve tried the medium wide noodles and the “jiuye” style, and I highly recommend the medium wide ones. They have a nice thickness and texture that really reminded me of handmade knife cut noodles back in China.
Overall, I honestly think the noodles here taste better than at Max Beef Noodle, and the owner’s attitude was also very warm and welcoming. I’ll definitely come back again.
It used to be really delicious before, to the point where I wanted to go there almost every day. I’m not sure how it is now though.
I haven’t been to QinCheng for a long time, and I was really craving their spicy beef noodles. But when I went back, it didn’t taste like before at all. The noodles, broth, and ingredients were all different, and even the side dishes were gone. There was no braised beef bone either, which was honestly disappointing. I completely lost my appetite halfway through.
I asked the staff, and they confirmed that the chef has changed. Now I’m just wondering if anyone knows where their previous chef is working now. I really just want to eat that original beef noodle again.