Today I was unexpectedly at a senior’s centre for dinner. This Tarim Kitchen’s ghost kitchen, where they have been operating for the last five months. A three person team serving authentic Uyghur street food from Xinjiang. For those unfamiliar, this is best described as a mix of Chinese and Middle Eastern cuisine, similar to that of Kazakhstan.
They are popular on food delivery apps and are available for take out all throughout the week. If looking to dine in, you can only do so on the weekend: Saturday and Sunday. My guest knew the owner so we were given special consideration to be able to dine in this Friday. Seating is within the senior centre’s cafeteria, and food is prepared out of its kitchen.
It is hard to tell there is a restaurant here, with no sandwich boards or a banner, just a sign in the window when they are operating. So you need to know to want to go.
The front door is also locked for the safety of the senior residents and you need to be buzzed in to enter. Delivery drivers call ahead, which require the staff to run to them with the food orders, interrupting their service or cooking. This is quite the distance considering you have to pass the front desk, their makeshift thrift shop Popup, and cafeteria seating to get to the front door from the kitchen.
As far as I can discern they are the only restaurant serving authentic uyghur cuisine in the city. All the food is scratch made using organic ingredients, that is halal. I love that all their meat and vegetables are bought on the day, with the possibility of selling out and having to close earlier. Food is always on a first come first served basis. I was also impressed by how fast all the food comes out, despite only having two men working in the back.
We trusted the owner’s suggestion and tried a good chunk of their menu, starting with the Samsa. This is an oven-baked pastry filled with spiced lamb and onion. It was crispy on the outside, savoury and juicy on the inside. Like a soup dumpling with an air of curry spice and cumin, but in a hard doughy pocket that keeps the liquid within while requiring you to rip through it with clenched teeth. Deceptively filling.
The Big Plate Chicken is great for family style sharing. A casserole dish of braised chicken with potatoes, chilli, and bell peppers. This was described as the “pride of Xinjiang” on the menu. I liked how hearty the dish was, saucy and savoury, with mild spice. The green peppers offered a break and a short burst of bitterness to contrast the chicken, and the potatoes were a nice starchy base to complete the bite. I just wish the chicken bones were not so crushed. We had to eat the meat slow and carefully as to not chip a tooth on bone or accidentally swallow any. Be warned said bones are as small as a sprinkle.
This is served with hand-pulled noodles that comes separately, so you can enjoy the spectacle of pouring one into the other. Truly this was the best part of the dish, its thick jagged cut edges soaking up much of the excess oils and sauce that pooled.
Their Naan is another option for the above. This is crispy Uyghur flatbread. Dry and tough, this felt like the whole grain version. It also accompanies their hand held lamb below.
For drinks they have a milk tea served hot and with Kaymak, a “creamy milk skin”. A scoop of yellow that resembled and tasted like unsalted butter. It adds a viscous churned cream to the beverage. It grows on you, and oddly did manage to help rejuvenate the palate from all the fragrant and bold flavours.
But for something more refreshing, I recommend looking to a can of their Sparkling yogurt milk beer. This is a fizzy carbonated soda with the colour and tang of milk and yogurt. Not sweet, but it had a salty vanilla flavour to it. Very unique, I have not had anything else like it.
The Lahman is hand-pulled noodles tossed with stir fried beef and vegetables. Not as satisfying as the thick noodles above, but just as lengthy. Like spaghetti and just as slippery, especially with the tomato based sauce here. This was a light noodle, but I could have used more punchy seasonings, seeing it as more bland compared it to everything else.
In contrast is the Dried fried rice noodle, which at the time was not yet available on the menu, with plans for its release the following week. Wok-fried hand-pulled noodles with beef, onion, celery, and chilli. This is for those who like their noodles spicy, with the ability to make it as hot as you want it. This is prepared with their own homemade chilli, using imported peppers to have it as traditional as possible. The result, a heat that hits and stays with you, compounding the more you have. The celery added freshness and a change in texture with its crisp crunch, but did little to temper the fire in my mouth.
It wasn’t until my first bite did I figure out why this was named “Hand-held Lamb”. This was a big platter of tender boiled lamb on the bone. A bone that you can use as a handle to eat the meat clean off of, all in one pull. I just would have liked some rice with this. As it, the dish felt incomplete, and not all that complimentary with the raw onion. As mentioned above, it also comes with the naan, but its tough texture only distracted from how supple the meat was. Be warned, the sauce is quick to congeal so prioritize this one.
Similarly, the Uyghur Salad was more onion than I knew what to do with. I found myself digging out the thin slices of tomato and the boiled pepper, all tossed with vinegar and sesame oil. This was meant to be a refreshing herb salad with a salty and tangy kick, if you like onion.
The lack of rice above was solved with the Uyghur Pilaf. Rice pilaf with tender roasted lamb and softened carrots. This reminded me of Greek style lamb and rice, but the rice here was tacky and without the herbal zest of a cream dip. Along with the big chicken, this too is another iconic Uyghur dish.
Be sure to save room for dessert, because their Honey Layer Cake is just as unique as everything else we had. Made fresh daily, this is a twelve layered cake with creamy and crispy levels of cake, honey, and creamy suzma. “Suzma” is is a tangy, thick strained yogurt. The mixed layers offer a different chew. A cross between a cookie, biscuit, and sponge cake. Honeyed and nutty, its mild sweetness would be great with tea.
Not necessarily a cuisine I would crave for, but one I found fascinating to discover. Much of it was somehow familiar, and I couldn’t help but to have expectations based on listed names. Therefore came with preconceived notions of the food. Whereas I think it would be more beneficial to go in with an open mind. Because the naan, pilaf, and milk tea were not what I knew them to be. Overall, this was truly a unique dining experience, and one I would recommend.
Tarim Kitchen
3502 Fraser St, Vancouver, BC V5V 4C5
(604) 217-8861
tarimkitchen.zomi.menu
