Beijinger in Britain: Xinjiang, Chips and Beans

On a grubby high street in South London’s Camberwell, opposite a fried chicken joint and next to a kebab house, is … wait for it … a real Xinjiang restaurant. I'd been searching for authentic Chinese food here since my tour of China Town's Anglo-Cantonese dives last week. This place seems to have got everyone talking since it opened in 2009, including food critics of national newspapers.

Jay Rayner in The Observer wrote a fairly glowing review. Here’s a nugget:

“Pieces of grilled lamb came crusted with ground cumin, chilli and salt. We pulled them off the metal spikes with our fingers and felt butch and prehistoric for doing so. I appreciated the inclusion of little squares of crisped lamb fat, though beware: they are lovely the moment they come off the grill; grim and greasy a minute later.”

Goodness knows why he pulled them off with his fingers. What a shazi laowai!! Seems entirely counter-intuitive. Like eating an ice-lolly with a fork. But spot on about eating them quick sharp. He goes on:

“My companion and I drank a couple of beers each and agreed that while what he had eaten was clearly hewn from the same rock as the Chinese food we recognised, this came from its outer edges; from a harder place of cold winter winds.”

Time Out London on the dapanji: “a wonderfully rich star anise-and-chilli-flavoured broth bobbing with pieces of bird on the bone, plus potatoes.”

Well. Here's a Beijinger's take on it all. Surprisingly authentic. Just like a bog-standard Xinjiang restaurant in Beijing. Not much like a Xinjiang restaurant in Xinjiang, which aren’t really anything like Xinjiang restaurants in Beijing anyway. Cheap and humble, it wears the disguise of a high street Chinese restaurant but, remarkably, offers food almost singularly unique in the UK.

The mutton chuan’r was the best dish. No skimping on the fat and the meat pretty well cooked. Dapanji looked a little sad and oily, but saved by tender chicken and hand-pulled noodles with a well-textured bite. Tudousi a collapsed puddle of oily, shredded spuds. The Xinjiang fried noodles lacked tomato, and tasted much like most of the other fried dishes on offer - sweet, chilli-spiked with an edge of undercooked bell pepper. Jiaozi were dreadfully doughy. And shame there was no oven-baked bread.

What’s most remarkable isn’t the food – after all, this is some of the most basic Chinese fare there is – it’s the fact that more restaurants like this haven't opened all over the place. It’s cheap (for London), with crowd-pleasing flavours easy to churn out. The place packs out most nights, and everyone's talking about it. Given its ubiquity around China, Xinjiang must be one of the least travelled of Chinese cuisines, at least with regard to Europe and North America. But with places like Silk Road opening up (and China opening up of course), seems that might be all about to change.

Photos: Tom O'Malley