Taste of Kashgar

A staff member sells traditional Xinjiang snacks at Kashgar Restaurant, a highly popular Beijing eatery that offers a variety of Xinjiang food including the famous roasted lamb leg. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

The Xinjiang yogurt (7 yuan per bowl) is a treat. It's delightfully sour and sprinkled with white sesame and raisins. The plump fruits are elastic and lusciously sticky, as if they've been pre-soaked in a sweet syrup or honey, and the flavor plays nicely against the yogurt's natural tartness. It's good to slurp a few spoons of it after eating strong dishes like the chicken with hot pepper, clearing the palate so you can enjoy the full flavors of other foods.

The baked bun stuffed with mutton (4 yuan per bun), a traditional item for breakfast, wears a very thin flour skin stuffed with onion and mutton dressed in cumin and black pepper. It leaves a fresh mutton aroma in the nose when you exhale. Unlike many Chinese stuffed buns, whose stuffing is usually mashed into paste, making it impossible to tell ingredients, the Xinjiang buns feature clearly cut and recognizable mutton pieces.

The bean jelly (12 yuan) is a surprise. Made of mung-bean starch, the jelly noodles practically melt in the mouth without chewing. The cold dish carries a hint of spiciness that slowly develops but then quickly fades away.

The Xinjiang-style cold noodle dish (10 yuan) is indiscriminate: We found those angel-hair-like noodles to be knotty and hard to chew, as if exposed to the air too long.

The stir-fried noodle with vegetables (18 yuan) is slightly greasy, and a sauce of tomato and spices give it a sweet and tangy taste. Like most portions here, the serving is generous. The noodle is boiled very soft and saturated with the cooking sauce.

While restaurants from many Islamic cultures shun all forms of alcohol, the Uygurs - like their neighbors in the Tibet autonomous region - consume both locally made wines and beers. Barley is the favored grain for beer-making in China's far west, and the Kashgar restaurant in Beijing offers the Sinkiang brand in both yellow and black brews (13 yuan per bottle). Many of the sweets you can buy from the friendly vendors in the stalls on nearby Niujie (Ox Street) are also sold here.

The servers are all polite and prompt, and Wi-Fi is available at the restaurant, which is run by the provincial government's office in the capital.

If you go with more than 10 people, you can get bumped up to the second floor's large tables and private dining rooms. Some of the dishes are in limited supply, such as the roasted lamb leg (28 sets available a day) and the braised camel palm (10 sets a day). So, call to preorder such items before you go.

IF YOU GO

11 am-9:30 pm daily; 60 Pen'er Hutong (east end of Wanshou Park on the southwest side of the Second Ring Road near Taoranting station on subway Line 4), Xuanwu district, Beijing.

010-6355-7618.