Lanzhou Hotel Restaurant 兰州宾馆餐厅

Bland décor and bustling service offer scant evidence that this restaurant showcases – in some style – the food from one of China’s most culturally diverse provinces. Gansu is home to myriad ethnic groups, each with their own cooking style and food staples. Many of those dishes can be sampled here. Office workers and Yanjing-swilling locals all swear by the aromatic braised lamb, cooked so soft it shreds apart at the merest tug of the chopsticks, stewed together with gelatinous slippery
potato noodles, another regional specialty. The cold sesame noodles, a Lanzhou staple, are equally popular, though pricey (RMB 22 a bowl) and overhyped.
If you’ve never eaten lily bulbs – tender, white edible bulbs said to help with coughs and lung maladies – this is probably the best place in town to try them. Deliciously plump and soft, they’re simply steamed along with pumpkin, another
vegetable with a natural sweetness. The dish is also dotted with ice-cream sprinkles (seriously), which they should have saved for the hui douzi, a faintly sweet soup made of grey peas. Another dessert of sorts is tian pizi, a drink made from fermented wheat with the taste of sweet wine and the crisp, brittle bite of wheat grains.