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Published: September 3rd 2010
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Continuing to catch up on the Xinjiang portion of our trip, I will say a little about the food we enjoyed in Turpan and Urumqi. Although the influx of Chinese people and money into Xinjiang has resulted in an eclectic mix of cuisines available in restaurants and street food, especially in Urumqi, there is no point in eating anything other than the local Uyghur (and Hui) food when you are there. It is just too good and too hard to get anywhere else. We went overboard on eatingin Xinjiang, and I went overboard on the photos posted here. Somebody out there asked about food, so here you go.
The desert oases produce an abundance of fruit and nuts, as well as a great variety of vegetables. The Hami melons are exquisite. The grapes, which are being harvested now are sweet and juicy, and the raisins come in several varieties, all of which are out of this world. Lamb skewers are the best, seasoned with cumin and a little hot pepper powder. In Xinjian they usually come with ca. 4 pieces of meat and 2 of fat. It's all good. The little hot pockets, or
samsas, filled with lamb and onions are great, as is the unique Uyghur flat bread, or naan. The pulled noodles are fantastic with the different sauces all featuring peppers, lamb, onions, and maybe a few tomatoes. Whole slowly roasted chicken and yogurt are both excellent. Uyghur tea is an interesting mix of dried hemp leaves and a few flower petals. The pictures illustrate many of these and some of the other goodies we had.
All of this can be enjoyed from street vendors, but there are also a few Uyghur restaurants in Urumqi, near the tourist bazaar, that we tried. This year Ramadan, the month of daylight fasting in Islam, coincided with our time in Xinjian, so these places didn't open until after sunset. The food in these places was well worth the wait. Our last evening we went to a restaurant at their opening time, which was about 20 minutes before sunset. Inside, people were seated, ordering, and prepaying for the food, which is the Uyghur custom. The tables all had baskets of bread and plates of cut watermelon in the middle. All parties of less than 4-6 were sharing tables, as the demand to eat is high
at this time among people who have been fasting all day and every chair and corner of table was needed. Before sunset it was very quiet in the restaurant as people waited. In the street it was the same, many people quietly sitting at the small street tables with bowls of noodles and whatever else they had ordered in front of them. At the moment of sunset, the street erupted in a cacophony of noodle slurping and inside the restaurant everyone dived for the melon and bread as waiters madly started fulfilling the orders at all the tables. It was an amazing scene that made some of the meaning of Ramadan meaningful for us.
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