Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine — Restaurant in Rowland Heights

These days, the glitz and bustle of Rowland Heights is enough to make you wonder whether you had taken the 57 South too far and landed at Disney. The eastern San Gabriel Valley city, with a population of 48,000, contains several plazas with more interesting restaurants than entire cities of even greater size. A nighttime cruise across Colima Rd is a dizzying spectacle of lights and signs in Hangul and Chinese script. Your head swivels as you panic breathlessly at the daunting prospect of which spot to choose. Tonight, however, you will be staying away from the inner heart of Rowland. In the hinterland of Mandarin Plaza, wedged between the 60 fwy and South Pacific RR tracks, is Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine. Along with its other locations in Alhambra and Irvine, it provides the only offering of the Turkic food of China's Xinjiang province. The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority in China and subjected to the opprobrious treatment from their government, even by Chinese standards. It's setting along the Silk Road was perhaps the greatest force in shaping its cuisine. They offer dumplings called manta. Afghani's call their dumplings mantua. In Nepal they have the momo and Koreans do mandu. Uyghur kitchens make breads called naan, similar, but different to that found in Punjabi bistros. However, it is not the naan, but the goshnaan that you will want to order: a hubcap of flaky pastry, crimped around the circumference, and stuffed with a blend of beef, lamb and onions. From the condiment caddy you can grab a dried chili spice mix and black vinegar; apply these flavor enhancers generously or meanly, allowing your taste to dictate. Before plowing away at the big plate chicken, a mass of noodles, bell peppers, potatoes, scallions, and fowl swimming in a lake of spiced red sauce like so many tyrants and murderers in the River Phlegethon, admire the decor. The mural of medieval Turks gathered around a campfire playing lutes and smoking long pipes, the ceremonial textiles adorning walls and other surfaces. Then, with the obligatory "taking in" of your surroundings behind you, go ahead and dig into the big plate chicken, know in Mandarin as da pan ji and in the native tongue as qong texse toxu qorumisi. Like many another noodle dish found in Asia, this is the co-production of itinerate Chinese workers, specifically from neighboring Szechuan. Szechuan migrants were craving a dish to remind them of home. Left without their beloved peppercorns, they turned instead to star anise and cinnamon. Voila! Dapanji! Also try the less flaky, yet more crispy meat pie called quyash quatlima, which requires twenty minutes to prepare, but along with minced meat comes...

I’ve tried the Dolan’s in Alhambra many times, and it’s been one of my favorite restaurants of all time. Thank God they finally opened up a location in Rowland Heights which is closer to me and the food quality holds up the same. My friends and I now have a tradition to come here for birthdays. I absolutely love their food and I’m obsessed with everything from their cucumber garlic salad to their beef/lamb pies, even the one that’s baked with cheese and comes with the yogurt dip, their big plate chicken and Laghman noodles!!! We finally tried stir fried green beans this last time plus the lamb kebabs - everything was to die for as always. The honey cake paired perfectly with the Dolan’s special tea!!! I can’t wait to come back and bring more friends and family! Highly recommend and definitely one of the best...

Ordered nangchaorou (饢炒肉) to go. Very little beef. 85% bread. The bread isn’t even really naan, but a kind of toasted sourdough. $18, including tip. Gave very little tip, considering the waitress was rude and condescending, and I wasn’t even a dine-in customer to warrant even the lowest of the recommended tip percentages at 18%. On the bright side, good flavour for a dish that was pretty much all bread that I could have purchased at a supermarket, for a few dollars, for an entire loaf. None of the kitchen or wait staff were Uyghurs themselves. Most were Han Chinese, as were all of the patrons. I do not recommend this restaurant unless you have money to burn and very thick skin to deal with the stress of having to interact with unpleasant people to place and...