Back to Karamay

After this weekend’s review of Spicy Temptations, I had another experience of the diversity of Chinese cuisine last night with a little tasting event at Karamay on Leicester’s London Road.

I reviewed this venue’s spicy Uighur cuisine from the far-West of China  in late 2105 and am pleased to see it’s still doing well. Last night’s event was pitched at expanding the horizons of a few food enthusiasts and was built around a demonstration of hand-pulled noodles, one of the distinctive elements of Western Chinese food.  Chef Yili Year showed fantastic skill, dramatically pulling out long strands from a flattened dough ball and then forming a sort of cat’s cradle to further stretch them. It was a real pleasure to see this difficult task done with consummate ease  – I was glad we weren’t encouraged to have a go, could have got embarrassing.

We would later enjoy the super-fresh, almost udon-style noodles with spicy beef sauce and a few other dishes such as the familiar beef in black bean sauce and fearsomely-spiced crispy chicken, spicy prawns, chicken pastries and  rice that was more a middle Eastern pilaf  than, say,  yeung chow style fried rice. Karamay has a big open kitchen behind a window  and the cheerful chef team seem more then happy for you to have a look-see.  Food adventurers should definitely give this place a try.