Lunch at the Golden Palace

The last two meals we had in Kashgar were at Orda, meaning "Palace" in Uyghur. After the market, we headed for lunch at the Golden Palace, Orda's upscale competitor in the Kashgar "fast-food" scene. Our guide was kinda down on the Golden Palace-- it was more expensive for the same quality, he said, and added that it was just a rip-off of the original. 

The Golden Palace was ridiculously opulent, shockingly-expensive-by-local-standards (entrees as high as $10) and very, very tasty. I'm not sure if you can see all the details in these pictures, but every surface, baseboards to ceiling, was moulded, gilded, hand-carved, hand-painted or otherwise embellished. If I wanted to renovate a casino, I'd call in the Uyghurs. 

Ellen is going to eat a kebab. I am eating a kebab. I could teach ESL classes with these captions. 

There's the fish cooking in the tandoor, the fish about to get eaten, and the ravage remains. This whole fish was rubbed in a pasty spice mixture that formed a thick, goopy crust in the super-hot over. It was one of the culinary highlights of Kashgar.