Roadtrip: Omar's Xinjiang Halal Restaurant - Alhambra (LA)

I had recently heard about an honest to goodness Xinjiang/Uyghur restaurant opening in the SGV.... not Northern style Muslim Chinese, but real Xinjiang. Last year, during our tirp to China we had eaten with friends at an Xinjiang restaurant called Jinsite in Beijing. I really enjoyed the food, all the different skewers, "rice to be eaten by hand", and other stuff. The Missus wasn't so thrilled, but She seemed rather enthusiastic about checking this little restaurant, located on the corner of New avenue and Ralph street (more on that later).

We arrived at around 11am and found the restaurant empty. The decor seemed right, though the young lady seemed annoyed that we had interrupted her television show and treated us like we were proverbial flies in the ointment....after all, how dare we walk into this restaurant and actually expect to eat?

 

The menu is small but packed with lamb, lamb, and more lamb. The Missus looked over the menu and gave me a puzzled look, but didn't say anything. We had thought about trying the rice to be eaten by hand...here called pilaf, but that would take an hour. We decided on a couple of other dishes instead.

We started with the house made yogurt ($2.50), which had a nice, sweet hint to eat, much like Suan Nai, but whereas Beijing yogurt is liquid, this was a pretty thick curd. It was much thicker than the Xinjiang yogurt I had before as well.

 

Still, I found it nice and refreshing.

I had wanted to try the Spicy Ox Tripe ($5.99).

These type of dishes are usually cold appetizers, so we were caught a bit off guard when it arrived warm. I'm not a big fan of honeycomb tripe, but this was wonderfully tender. the flavor wasn't especially spicy, and the Missus added even more black vinegar to it, but I can say I really enjoyed this dish. From here, things went pretty much downhill.......

We ordered two Yang Rou Chuan -  Lamb Skewers ($3.55), which were salty, but other than that very weakly seasoned.

 

Of course we had to get the Zi Ran Yang Rou, cumin lamb ($10.99). I currently use cumin from Xinjiang, it is pungent, but almost mildly sweet so I was itching to see what would arrive.... and I couldn't believe my eyes......

 

I'm not a big fan of grey meat, and tough grey meat is even worse. This was both, it was a very cheap cut, full of gristle, and not much cumin to the whole thing. Some onion, chili, and garlic would have surely helped and this was fairly low on the cumin scale in terms of flavor. Of course it didn't help that this looked like it was cooked over a can of sterno.........

If you compared that, with this, which is what I make at home, honestly, which would you rather eat?

 

We took most of it home and I tried to rescue it with more toasted cumin, some onions, wine, and dark soy.... but to no avail, it was DOA, beyond resuscitation.

The last dish was supposed to be the crowning jewel as I love the chewiness of hand pulled noodles ($12.99). what I do not love is hard, tough, almost brittle noodles, which is what this was.

 

Plus for thirteen bucks in the SGV, I expect a bit more than the three thin slices of lamb (though it was tasty lamb) and minimal vegetables in the stir fry. Man were those noodles hard, if you flogged me with this wet noodle, I'd be scarred for life......as it was the mental scars are more than sufficient.

All this combined with the server who made us feel like we were intruding.....it was a rather uncomfortable feeling. She did flash a smile though....when I asked for out check! It was so absurd, we can only laugh about it. In the end, we really didn't feel that this meal was worth forty bucks.......

As we were leaving, the Missus told me, "you know I don't care for Xinjiang food...." I asked Her why She had agreed to checking this place out. Her answer cracked me up; "I thought you said JINJIANG (Fujian) not XINJIANG! You owe me....." So we quickly rushed to Qing Dao Bread Food, then found some pretty good duck, had a visit to Domies bakery, and did take-out from a Yunnan restaurant......

Omar's Xinjiang Halal Restaurant
1718 New Ave
San Gabriel, CA 91776

Comments

[ed (from Yuma)]

You gotta work on your Chinese pronunciation, dude. That cumin lamb just looks evil - a mild and tasteless kind of evil to be sure, but certainly not appetizing.

[Kirk]

Hi Ed - LOL! I believe I'm pretty hopeless in that department........ but not as hopeless as that lamb dish was! ;o)

[Carol]

Grey meat is just evil. Don't feel bad about your pronunciation, Kirk. For all the years the Mister and I have been together, the only phrases he remembers are "go pi" and "tao yan." Oh and of course "xie xie."

[kat]

ah it was too good to be true...your version looks tons better!

[Jason]

That grey meat looked like the packs of ground beef when i leave them in the fridge too long. Although after the "great" blackout of 2011, a trip up to SGV might be a good idea, just not to this place.

[Faye]

That's too bad the food wasn't all that great - especially when you have to drive 2 hours for it! How was the weather that day - was it scorching hot??!

Never had homemade yogurt? Was it more tart than anything?

Hope you survived the blackout last night!

[bill]

So sad, and so rude of you to distrube the young lady ;-). I would have made a u-turn.

[Kirk]

Hi Carol - Grey is just an unappetizing color...especially for meat.

Hi Kat - It really doesn't take much to make an ok cumin lamb.....

Hi Jason - I hope you aren't eating that ground beef!

Hi Faye - It was pretty warm, but nothing like this past week.

I know Billy, how dare we interrupt that Chinese game show!