Stag City, Finchley Rd, London:
Very enjoyable meal here with a couple of friends.
This is very much a ‘no frills’ chinese restaurant, specialising in the cuisine of Xinjiang, although it is not Uygher owned.
Cucumber salad was a bit below par, stir fried cabbage and chilli was decent.
The chuanr (or skewers) were very good here. We tried lamb (which had alternating pieces of meat and fat as any good chuanr does), liver and intestine. For the uninitiated, these are grilled over charcoal on metal skewers and seasoned with a dusting of chilli, salt and cumin (and often a healthy pinch of MSG 
).
The naan was not the traditional Xinjiang type, but rather more like Turkish pide bread. The default way they served it was cut into pieces, deep fried and then dusted with chilli, cumin, salt. This was nice but a bit heavy when eaten with the lamb skewers I thought, so we requested one that was not deep fried and I think this worked better.
Da pan ji (big plate of chicken) was tasty. We ordered the medium size. Well executed with good flavours and the hand made noodles were great. This is a dish of braised chicken pieces on the bone, in a spiced broth with potatoes, fresh Aleppo chillies, onion, potato. Typically, freshly cooked noodles are later added to the bowl once some space had been made, and they absorb the spicy broth. In this instance the noodles were already on the plate, but that was fine. Unfortunately I was too distracted by this point to capture any photos of the dapanji or the chuan!
Chao mian pian is something I’ve not had outside of china, and this was a pleasant rendition. Chopped/torn pieces of fresh wide noodles braised in a tomato-based sauce with beef, peppers, onions and celery. One of my dining companions commented that it is not dissimilar to an Italian dish, which is true.
The highlight or the meal for me was the boiled lamb with spring onion sauce. The lamb was so tender and the fat and collagen melted away and it came effortlessly off the bone. The spring onion sauce was a great accompaniment, with flavour of the spring onion greens, ginger, salt and presumably some MSG given the superb umami whack it supplied.
I’m out of touch with London restaurants these days so I don’t know how this stacks up against other Xinjiang offerings in the city, but it is an improvement on my (generally good) experiences at Silk Rd in Camberwell many many years ago and I would be happy to visit again.
I asked the owner/chef where the curious name ‘Stag City’ came from. He said he likes deer and collects antlers 
Putera Puteri, Queensway
Pleasant enough roti canai with daal/sambal but far from the best. I wish I had opted for the chicken curry gravy though instead of the daal. Sardine karipuffs were delicious and very nicely light, flaky and ornate pastry.
Yildiz, Blackstock rd, Finsbury park, London:
Lamb ribs cooked on the mangal are king here. Quite possibly the best lamb ribs I’ve had and they are consistent too, attested to by friends who are veterans of the London mangal offerings (and on my 3 visits). These ribs are packed full of flavour and expertly cooked, juicy, smoky, meaty and the perfect balance of soft and chew. Everything they should be. Worth travelling for.
The sides I’ve tried here are all of great quality. They furnish you with a few bits (the sumac onions are wonderful).
The roasted onion and molasses ‘salad’ is also excellent.
I can’t wait for my next visit in a months time
! Wondering if that’s a deal-breaker for me as I’m a total sucker for well-made lahmacun.
. I also tried to get him to sell me half a kilo and he said they only sell by portion, not weight. I weighed the box when we got home and it was 450 grams, so near enough to what I wanted.
