Having spent a significant amount of time both living and travelling around this vast country, I had obviously been exposed to all the different regional customs and cuisines. One of my favourite dishes was la mian, noodles with beef and vegetables in a thick soup. La mian literally means 'pulled noodles' and comes from the way the noodles are pounded and then stretched out. This particular meal, although 'Chinese,' would be more accurately described as being Uyghur, after the people of Xianjiang in the northwest of China.
In the city of Lanzhou, an overnight train ride from Xi'an, I found the 'home' of this dish. The city itself turned out to be a pretty dull and painful 14 hour stopover on my trip, but it did give me the opportunity to sample some 'real' la mian. Unfortunately, one simple truth was to be confirmed in a cafe on the banks of the Yellow River... food tends to be better elsewhere! The best pizza is not necessarily found in Italy, the best kebabs are not always eaten in Turkey, the best curry is not exclusively cooked in India and the best fish and chips cannot confidently be claimed to be fried in England! Lanzhou was not to be the mecca of noodles, despite the giant statue erected in the city centre to commemorate its achievement.
I had much better luck the further I travelled along the Silk Road. While enjoying Tian Chi (the Heavenly Lake) I was invited by an old woman to eat laghman - the Uyghur name for the meal, in her yurt. There I was able to watch the woman prepare the noodles and enjoy the fruit of her labour. The dish was gradually becoming less soupy and more fried, but no less tasty the further I wandered into the Uyghur heartland.
Living in Kyrgyzstan, I got to eat much more of the stuff. By this point, the fried noodles no longer came in a soup form. Traditionally nomadic in their ways, the Kyrgyz people preferred their meat dishes to be fattier in order to build up warmth for the long winter nights spent on the steppes. After a year of eating noodles and rice, you'd have thought I would be sick of it, but no. Today I even managed to truly complete my journey of the Silk Road in Istanbul. Tucked away in a little corner of this vast metropolis, in the courtyard of the East Turkestan Foundation, there is a little Uyghur restaurant serving up inexpensive and delicious memories of my time imitating the 'Monkey King', living with the nomads of Central Asia and eating copious amount of the good life.
