Panda Express does not give you a proper view into the regional variety of Chinese cuisine. Like in any large nation, the cuisine of China has substantial regional differences. While in Shanghai this summer, I tried something I’m not very familiar with – the cuisine of Western China – at a restaurant called Lost Heaven Silk Road in the Jing’an district.
Based on the cuisine found along the ancient trading route, the menu offers foods from Xi’an and Dunhuang all the way to India, Pakistan and Persia. The restaurant owes much of its interior design specifically to Dunhuang, a small city in Gansu Province in the northwest of China, famous for its hundreds of caves decorated with ancient Buddhist art.
Our first dish was cold oat noodles, a specialty of western China where oats are more common than rice or wheat. The noodles were served with a slightly spicy sauce flavored with peanuts and were a refreshing start to the meal.
There were many meat dishes, especially good were the lamb ribs. The meat was flavorful, tender and the sauces added a lot to the dish. The skewers pictured above had a nice spice rub with flavors of cumin prominent.
We also had Xi’an rice noodles, which are flavored more by sesame oil and were more familiar as a Chinese dish.
There were several vegetable dishes including this slightly curried okra dish that was not the typically slimy okra you might be familiar with. These would seem not out-of-place in an Indian or Pakistani restaurant.
They also served so-called “Tang wei hu bing” buns, literally Chinese flavor foreign bread – pita bread stuffed with grilled meat and coriander. The flavors and style of more Middle Eastern cuisine was particularly noticeable here.
For dessert we had a Kashmir style rice pudding. While nothing pretty to look at, the cardamom flavored pudding was pleasant.
And a final sweet that left no doubt about where the far end of the silk road lies: baklava.
The restaurant is beautiful and the food is tasty. While one could quibble with its authenticity, I think they illustrate beautifully the reality that a lot of food is fusion, tracing the path of trade and migration and bringing together the ingredients, techniques and tastes of the people who make the journey.
Lost Heaven Silk Road
758 Julu Lu (Jing’an station)
+86 6266 9816
open for lunch and dinner daily
lostheaven.com.cn
christao408 
They look very Muslim type of dishes, Chris. Especially the okra and the skewered kababs.
Exactly – the silk road of course connected through the majority-Muslim countries into China and the western part of China has large Muslim populations even to this day. The food is an external manifestation of the shared culture.
This type of food is new to me (aside from having kebabs before).
yes, china does offer a huge variety of culinary differences within its own country. i noticed it when i went to inner mongolia, in the northern region of china. their cuisine certainly quite the opposite from the typical chinese cooking many encounter in overseas, which mainly are from the southern part of the country. there i learned they relied more on wheat more than rice. meat and spices more than seafood and vegetables. i have yet to visit the north-east region, which i heard where there is a large muslim community live. i can only assume they would offer more dishes similar to those found in india, pakistan, and persia, like the ones you described here.
Heavenly.