Kunming Restaurants

This is a chain restaurant, but heard the standards vary from shop to shop.

The roasts are hanging in the kitchen, separated by a glass window from outsiders on the street. Reminds one of Hong Kong cantonese cuisine.

Typical chinese eatery. Tables for 4 are most common. Clean.

Serves dim dum, daily soup, rice with various roasts, and noodles.

The menu is in chinese. The specials are on the wall. The rest lies underneath the glass tabletop.

Favorite Dish: The daily soup (RMB6 per bowl) calms those who missed home-cooked soup. I had "pa wang hua" which happened to be soup of the day.

The roast (I had char siew rice RMB 10) was so-so. The gravy is lacking something. I had expected it to be thick and savoury, but it was not.

The yam roll (RMB 10 for 3 pieces) is a must-try. This is similar to "Woo Kok", senze meat.
The roll is just fluffy and crunchy outside, the yam paste inside is just soft but not sticky.

The restaurant looks very nice from the outside. Lots of glass, dark blue theme, very classy.

And inside, a lot of pictures of old Kunming hang on the wall, giving a nostalgic feeling to a customer is a totally modern environment. The furniture and settings are all very modern.

Sit upstairs and get a good view of the Green Lake.

Favorite Dish: The soup ! It comes in a clay pot about 8 inches tall. You must order a soup, which is usually stewed over a low fire for a long time. Can be pork ribs or chicken (soupbase), and veges such as lotus root, etc depending on the day.

Other dishes are so-so, but not bad.

We ordered a chicken mushroom dish and that was a disappointment. There was little mushroom and chicken, in their place we found lots of onion and chillis.

The restaurant has a Qing deco to it, the ushers are dressed in Qi fashion, with the matching head-dress.

A big typical chinese upper class place. The waitresses unfortunately behave like bureaucrats, especially the senior ones. We had a little encounter: we asked for the bill, and the waiter came with it, pronouncing the amount loudly as she approaching us from 10 feet away. This irked me a little, but I kept quiet and asked her the amount when she finally stood beside us. She then asked for a smaller note, and I kindly complied but when I fished into my wallet for it, she was also busy looking in the same place and even suggested that "there there that's a five yuan note you can give to you". Gee, everything is her business !

Favorite Dish: Peking Duck at RMB128 each, enough for at least 4 people, ideally 6. This one dish is split into a few courses(all served at once) with all the necessary condiments:

1) crispy duck skin : make it the fillings of a pancake, add some spring onions and garlic and some duck sauce. Yummy. Alternatively it can be eaten with a dip in the sugar, and this tastes like very good meaty salsa.

2) tender duck meat: this can be the fillings of the sesame bun.

3) rice porridge: this goes with the duck meat

4) duck soup: now have you enough duck ?

Just order another vege, and that will complete your meal. If there are 6 of you, order another vege, for you might be scared of meat after so much duck.

Very nice.
It is located on Xin Wen Road, opposite Kundu.
There are two more bakeries across the road.

All of them not bad, this particular one is the most expensive.

Cheesecake is available.
Sponge cake with cream topping also available.
Fruit flavoured gelatin is also available.

Favorite Dish: A piece of cake about RMB 3- 6.

This is a chain restaurant serving beef noodles.

Fast food setting. People enter, pick their type of noodles, collect their food, sit down and enjoy the rest of the meal.

You can add as much toppings (chopped coriander, chopped spring onion are among the choices)

Favorite Dish: The beef rice noodles are quite some thing. The semi-clear soup has full beefy flavour. And the coriander really makes the whole soup drinkable to the last drop.

Big bowl 4 yuan. Small bowl 3 yuan. Both are actually quite large. So it's really the degree of hunger that matters.

You get a choice of fat or thin noodles.

Fast food setting.
Clean and Modern.
Plays Japanese music.
Generous serving of rice.
Delicious Japanese salad sauce.
Rice is better than noodles.
The noodles somehow do not taste like typical japanese Ramen.
Delivery service if you live within 10 min's walk.

Favorite Dish: Japanese salad. Toppings include sliced horseraddish !! The salad sauce is amazingly good. Cost RMB8.

This is a very modern high-class chinese restaurant, which offers Teochew cuisine.

The restaurant faces the Green lake, which can be seen through its tall windows, and has a seawater aquarium with many tropical fish and corals.

The waitresses have been trained to pay attention to every detail. So dining there is a great experience.

The utensils are of finest quality, although the dishes can be a little small in size.

Seafood can be expensive.

But if you know how/what to order, a great satisfying meal for 2 person costs the same as a trip to McDonald's (RMB60).

Favorite Dish: I love the teochew porridge, and tofu, and peanuts, and the free soup (absolute yum yum), and the braised goose, and the free tea (another example of top quality tea)

It is restaurant serving local muslim foods. Famous muslim foods in Kunming are their cold chicken, and their beef jerkey. But there are also other dishes in this restaurant that I find absolutely dilicious.

It is halal/kosher. In Kunming, you can always tell a restaurant is halal by its green colour (the auspicious colour of Muslims), and sometimes arabic writings.

The only thing a little silly about this place is the waitresses. They are quite "blur", sometimes you have to waive your hands and jump like a monkey for hours before they notice that you need help.

And if you need your dishes with rice, make sure you remind them a billion times. Because it seems they only starting to cook the rice when all the dishes are served on the table.

Favorite Dish: It tastes good, and is halal.

Try the "hong shao" ox tail, or the "tian ma" chicken hotpot, or vege stir-fried with gingko nuts.

My absolute favourite is the chicken soup.