Alleyway Gourmet: Xinjiang Fanzhuang

Alleyway Gourmet is a regular feature in the Beijinger magazine where we highlight Chinese cuisine as offered by restaurants located in some of Beijing's inner-city hutong neighborhoods.

I first visited the Xinjiang Fanzhuang as part of a quest to try all the restaurants attached to provincial and autonomous region representative offices in Beijing,and despite the distance, it’s a spot worth the trip when street-side chuanr just aren’t enough and you’re craving a little more adventure.

Located a ten-minute walk from the Chegongzhuang subway station, expect to wait for a table, especially witha large party – they don’t take reservations. The premises are a bit hidden but looks quite nice from the outside in its dark little alley. More than any other provincial restaurant, authenticity is the operators’ primary concern, running not just a restaurant, but also shops selling all sorts of imported goods from Urumqi along with a huge display of fruits, nuts, and pastries. Walking through the doors is very much reminiscent of my trips to Wulumuqi.

The menu is complete with illustrations and bilingual descriptions, making it very expat-friendly. It includes the usual lamb dishes, and quite a few more beef dishes than most similar restaurants. There are also some rather un-Xinjiang dishes, like abalone.

We decided to order the standards for comparison: chuanr (lamb skewers, RMB 15), dapanji (big plate chicken, RMB 50), and yangpai (lamb steaks, RMB 100) to name a few. The chuanr were of the big variety, juicy and perfectly cooked but didn’t measure up to those available elsewhere – this is the representative office, after all. The dapanji was solid and beyond criticism, probably one of the better ones this side of the Taklimakan Desert, albeit using different spices than others I’ve tasted before. On the noodle side, chao mianpianr (RMB 18) and la tiaozi (RMB 18) drew accolades from some of the more discriminating noodle eaters with us. Having a vegetarian in our midst, we took the opportunity to try out some vegetable dishes for a change, including cabbage, eggplant and mushrooms, all of which rated favorably by carnivore and herbivore alike.

But when all was said and done, the star of the night was inevitably the yogurt. The natural unsweetened yogurt (RMB 7), covered in nuts, fruits and screaming freshness, drew unanimous “wows.”

Standard dishes arrive quickly, most in fewer than five minutes. A pleasant surprise was how friendly the staff was compared to a few years back. They smiled, made suggestions and were on the ball for just about every request we had. That’s a remarkable improvement.

Until a recent visit there, I would have traveled even farther, to the Kashgar Representative Office, for a Xinjiang food fix. But now I know I can save some travel time and hassle, and still get a great ethnic meal just a little closer to home.

Xinjiang Fanzhuang 新疆饭庄
Daily 11am-9.30pm. 1 Chegongzhuang Dajie Beili, Xicheng District (6836 2795)
西城区车公庄大街北里1号
600m west of Chegongzhuang station (Lines 2 and 6)

A version of this article appears in the January 2014 issue of the Beijinger

Photo: Badr Benjelloun

(Full disclosure: Badr Benjelloun is the CTO of True Run Media)