SOMETIMES YOU EAT THE WORLD, SOMETIMES THE WORLD EATS YOU

There used to be a guy who ran a blog in LA, named Noah Galuten (which looks like an anagram,  and indeed isan anagram of ‘Aah no gluten’). The blog was called Man Bites World and the idea was to eat in a different restaurant evefry day, each from a different ethnic group.  He made it to 102 days. He’s now a chef, I gather, and I can no longer find the blog, so I can’t tell you whether or not he ever ate in a Uyghur restaurant, but I did just last week, Etles at 235 Hoe Street, Walthamstow.  It has a very fine tapestry on the wall.

The Uyghurs, as many know, are a much maligned and repressed ethnic group in China, Sunni Moslems mostly, and there’s talk of a million of them being incarcerated in ‘re-education camps’ in China.  No wonder Walthamstow looks good to them. 

The menu looks like this. 

It’s halal of course and they don’t serve alcohol but they’re happy for you to bring your own.  Everybody wins.

At first I thought they could benefit from a little advice on how to word their menu to appeal to an English clientele,  ‘cow stoumch’ (sic) and ‘noodles with calf’ lose something in the translation, though they seemed to be doing plenty of business without any help from me.

We ordered one ‘safe’ dish - Liangban Miurou – spicy beef with a vinegary sauce,  which looked like this:             

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And one ‘unusual’ dish - Hula Yangti ‘lamb hoof marinated in fresh herbs and stirred with spices and bell pepper’ which looked like this:

The food was pretty good, and I loved the plates, and the place had a good vibe, and I’m glad I had the lamb’s hoof, but (and I suppose I knew this anyway) there really isn’t much meat on a lamb’s hoof, though there is, lord know, a lot of skin.  I wish was left sort of wishing I’d ordered the lamb kidney kebab.  Next time.