Xin Jiang Restaurant/Halal西域食府.清真 — Restaurant in Markham

The food here is, in a word, outstanding. We've been twice and both meals were off-the-charts.

One of the reasons we chose to try Xin Jiang is that they do a lot of lamb dishes. We love properly prepared lamb and these folks do it right. We've had BBQ Lamb Skewers, Braised Lamb on Naan, and Roasted Lamb Ribs. Every one of those dishes were fabulous, though if we had to choose just one it would be the lamb ribs. They were rich and fatty (in that delicious way only lamb fat can be), and cut wonderfully with the onion and veggies served on the plate. They have a lovely, very lightly battered crust that adds a bit of crunch to each bite.

Their BBQ and skewers are varied and delicious. In addition to the BBQ lamb we've tried BBQ Chicken Gizzards (soooo good) and BBQ Okra. The ones we've tried have a dusting of a barely sweet, warm cumin seed/chili powder mix that adds a unique and earthy flavour that we now crave.

Another appetizer worthy of special comment is the BBQ Squid Tentacles. They come lightly bathed in the cumin/chili spices infused in a light oil. The flavours are blended perfectly, and the squid is firm enough to be crunchy but not chewy. Some of the best we've had.

Their Stir Fried Green Beans With Minced Beef was delightful. The green beans were heated through but tender and flavoured with a balance of Sichuan peppers, hot peppers and onions. The beef was tender and juicy, with just enough to satisfy but not so much to distract from the beans and peppers (which were, for us, the star attraction of this dish).

Another outstanding offering is their Xinjiang Style Crispy Beef. We make a pretty mean crispy beef at home and love trying other versions when we find them. And this is one of the best we've found. Coated in a wonderful light batter with a pleasing texture, the super tender beef is complemented perfectly with a flavourful cumin and hot pepper spice mix.

Their menu is huge, and we've only been able to try a few of their offerings, but we've purchased a membership (a great deal; a $20.00 membership gets you 10 - 15% off every dish) and will be back often to try every dish on the menu. We've even got a menu at home that we're going to fill in like a bingo card as we try each dish! LOL...

Update 2022 From 2 stars to 5.

The restaurant has significantly improved on the customer service front since my last review 5 years ago Their food is always excellent, always new dishes to experiment! We frequent it enough to get their loyalty membership Only drawback is forced gratuities

"No Tip...Dont come back!!" Appalling service even for a Chinese restaurant more to follow.... Good food no doubt We were the only non Chinese at the restaurant a spectacle among other patrons Went at 9 pm were greeted by a waiter and led to the table, great welcome as most of such establishments ignore you at the entrance during rush hour(Friday night perhaps.,,Anyways they were out of leg o lamb n skewers the sole purpose of my visit and our waitress suggested we try alternatives i got 1 which i liked but i still wanted skewers she goes "same meat u dont eating skewers" i tend to give people benefit of doubt especially the fresh off the boat kind and dont judge them too harshley Food arrived it was great xin jiang, uyghur style, our waitress was nice enough to offer my 3 yo high chair at first and after serving food never once visited or made eye contact.... we needed more cutlery Anyways paid the bill $50.13 for 4 items as we were about to leave she puts the bill in front of my face and says you dont pay tip, we were taken aback said u didn't have the things we wanted she says dont come back!! And throws our left over in the pile as my wife was packing it for my son, when we demanded to see the manager she goes "no manager here" we requested thru other staff a lady sitting in the corner skewering meat and made an effort to help by smiling sorry We were shocked and laughing all the way back home in a "did that just happen??!!" State I remember seeing a documentary about how people are enslaved thru trafficking and paid next to nothing when they come here, sorry lady youve got my sympathy...

Food was very flavourful here...but I’m giving it a 2 star because one of the dishes we ordered was incredibly dangerous and difficult to eat. We ordered H42 which is the xinjiang bone in chicken stir fry and it was full of bones and tough to eat pieces. We would never have expected this dish to use such low quality chicken pieces as the dish itself is priced fairly high. We had to chew VERY carefully to ensure shards of chicken bone didn’t stab us in the mouth or accidentally swallow it. Pretty disappointed with the quality of meat we got and would probably not go back as you don’t know what to expect from their menu.

Note to the owner for the reply. Thanks for clarifying the item number as there were mistakes on your menu where the xinjiang bone in chicken was labelled the same as the one with the noodle and that was pointed out to your server. I understand this dish said bone in. There’s no problem with having bones in the dish, that is not my complaint at all. What I am informing others about is the fact that the bones were chopped up in a way that it was incredibly DANGEROUS to eat. There were sharp bone pieces everywhere that have fallen off the chicken in the stir fry process and it resulted in a very uncomfortable dining experience. What should’ve been an enjoyable meal took 4x as long to eat because we had to be careful to not injure ourselves when chewing because bone shards were located in the sauce and not just “attached to the chicken”. Ask yourself if this is the type of chicken that should be served to customers....