Snow. Ice. Gross gray snow. At least the icicles are fun to play with. It’s a frigid Boston winter with temperatures below 270 kelvins, gnawing away at your gloved but still numb fingers, cryogenically freezing your face, wind howling, while iced bubble tea stores taunt you mockingly, since even their chilly drinks are hotter than this urban tundra.
Only one thing can save you, and that thing is Ali’s Uyghur Kitchen. It deserves five Michelin stars, but I’ll just say it’s a pretty good restaurant so that when you try it, you’ll be blown away by how much better it is than “pretty good”. I’ll admit it’s definitely pretty good.
Ali’s Uyghur Kitchen is located in Allston near Boston University, in the food court of Super 88 Market or Hong Kong Supermarket or whatever that Asian supermarket is called.
Now I know the last time I did a review, Kevin strongly condemned me for not actually reviewing the subject matter and instead rambling about the foxes in his backyard, so I’ll try to randomly mention foxes this time too.
Cool, let’s dive in! All the photos were taken by me. This is not a cult, I swear.
The restaurant
Just look at that. Their name’s font just screams “we make no-nonsense great food”. Truly amazing.
For some context, Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group in China that are sadly more famous for human rights abuses rather than for their amazing cuisine. It’s a mix of Chinese, Islamic, and Central Asian styles. I’ve never had any Central Asian cuisine before trying this restaurant, so I didn’t know what to expect, but Peter has been to Kazakhstan which is pretty similar and he said the food there was good.
I’m not sure exactly when Ali’s opened but it seems to be after the pandemic. It’s run by these two Uyghur guys, one who looks like Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the other who looks like Ali because he is Ali. Before that, there was a different Uyghur restaurant named Silk Road Express at the exact same stall that opened in 2019. I don’t know what came before that.
The Ali’s menu has 27 items and I’ve been there 7 times and ordered online once, so I’ve covered a solid portion of their menu, specifically 14 items so far. The general theme is lamb meat and lots of spices so I recommend bringing your own water. The leftmost panel is mostly small stuff, the next one is main course stuff, the third panel is mostly cold stuff, and the rightmost panel is hardcore Uyghur-style main course stuff. The Chinese text uses traditional characters and Cantonese terms such as 沙律 instead of 沙拉. And yes, I will (eventually) review all of the menu items for completeness. After all, who wouldn’t want to, since Ali’s is the best restaurant in Boston?
For some reason, the receipts call this restaurant “Muqum Uyghur Kitchen” instead of Ali’s and some of the menu items have different names (for instance 西紅柿 instead of 番茄).
Fresh Noodles Allston
Ali actually owns a second restaurant a few steps away from this one, called Fresh Noodle Allston (not “Noodles”). There are exactly two overlapping menu items: lamb noodle soup and tea eggs. (Also Kevin if you’re reading this we should go to Fresh Noodles Allston tomorrow which should be a refreshing if you’re fed up with my Ali’s obsession.)
The review
Lamp noodle soup
It’s not a typo. That’s what the menu says. It’s one of their best items (maybe that’s why it’s first) but the Ali’s Uyghur Kitchen menu calls it “lamp” while Fresh Noodle Allston calls it “lamb”. As a shared menu item, it seems less Uyghur than the Ali’s other items and more like a standard Chinese noodle soup.
Goyro laghman
It’s really good. I highly recommend it. Lamp kebab sold separately.
Pilaf combo
Yay, more lamb meat! This one is also really good.
Somsa and diced noodles
I ordered these online and it’s a lot more expensive than ordering in-person, due to all sorts of extra fees. The somsa is filled with lamb meat obviously but it doesn’t stick to the bread so it might fall out if you aren’t careful. The diced noodles tasted pretty similar to the laghman.
Naan and yogurt
The naan is a bit different from other naan that I’ve had before and basically a pie filled on the inside with… yep, lamb meat. Or you can think of it as a giant flat somsa. It’s really good as well. I swear I wasn’t paid off by Ali’s to say all that, because the yogurt is downright awful. OK, I’m probably just biased because I’ve only ever had western-style yogurt and this one was completely different and not sweet or fruity or anything. It’s some serious yogurt.
Cold noodles and dumplings
Those noodles look kind of barren other than the cucumbers but it actually works out pretty nicely since Ali’s spices everything pretty heavily. The dumplings are OK but worse than the ones at Chinese restaurants.
Lamp and chicken kebabs
Don’t let the tape on the TVs fool you! The two kebabs are actually priced differently. The chicken is $3 and the lamp is $4 probably because of the extra electronics, but they’re definitely both worth it! I’ve had many kebabs before at home and at various restaurants and in mainland China and in Taiwan and these are by far the best. The meat isn’t hard to chew like some restaurants and they picked the perfect spices. Although yeah they did go a bit overboard with the spices. In comparison, my parents don’t really spice up kebabs when they make them. Total amateurs compared to Ali’s. Honestly I don’t have much of a preference between the two flavors of kebabs, although foxes seem to prefer Kevin’s chickens and hence the chicken kebabs.
Bento 3 dish
This one is fun. It’s rice plus you get to pick 3 things from the metal trays at the front right of the stall. I didn’t like the beef with carrots though since the beef was way too hard to chew.
Cucumber salad
It’s cucumbers plus some nice sauce.
Dry fried noodles and carrot salad
The dry fried noodles honestly tasted pretty similar to the other similar-looking noodles that I’ve reviewed so far, although it’s a bit oily for something that’s supposed to be dry. The carrot salad just… doesn’t really work for some reason. I liked the carrots in the bad beef but they don’t taste great as a cold salad, unlike cucumbers. The carrot salad is the only Ali’s thing that I wasn’t able to finish. Even the yogurt, however vile it was, made it down my throat, but not the carrots.
Drinks
I don’t actually know if Ali’s sells drinks since I always bring my water bottle, but there’s a chain store a few steps away called Kung Fu Tea which sells bubble tea and smoothies. Sadly they closed this location a few weeks ago, maybe because it has a ton of one-star reviews on Google Maps?
I also noticed that Ali likes to respond to some one-star reviews for his restaurants and has a pretty distinctive writing style. For instance, one angry customer complained that he didn’t recognize the phrase “alsalam alaykum” and another review called Ali rude so Ali accused the reviewer of also being rude. And here’s my favorite and second-favorite Ali quotes:
Do you have people who knows alsalam bring l will hire them for front l don’t care if it’s your sister or mother if you can’t don’t expand everyone working to be Muslim also if you have any doubts about food if it’s halal or not come and check my meat I’ll be happy to show you if you don’t want it delete the comment because it affects my business if you can’t help for a Muslims business owner at least don’t try to break it
Yes everything is halal brother I go to farm and do it myself the beef
A challenger approaches!
I recently found out there’s another Uyghur restaurant neighbor called Jahunger, which I tried and instantly disliked. It’s a sit-down restaurant instead of a food court stall so it’s a lot more expensive and the staff are a bunch of random college students. Well, maybe the chefs are Uyghur but the food just can’t compare to Ali’s. Do not recommend. Ali’s is and will always be the best restaurant in Boston.