Oat Flour Noodle Banquet in Hohhot

A well-known Inner Mongolian dish is steamed oat flour noodle. Before leaving Hohhot, the guide brought us to an oat flour noodle restaurant.

Oat Noodle Banquet

You pull the steamed noodles from the bamboo steamers and dress them with the lamb soup sauce. The oat flour noodles had a terrible, rubbery texture and cooled too quickly, which made it even more rubbery. Some of the noodles are stuffed with carrots and radishes, which didn't make them taste better. All the non-oat flour noodle dishes were quite tasty.

Oat Flour Noodles

Oat Flour Noodles

Lamb Stock Sauce; Oat Flour Noodles with Carrots

Oat Flour Noodles

Pork and Peppers; Noodles with Green Bean Sprouts

Tofu with Bean Paste Sauce; Mutton & Potatoes

Inner Mongolian Snacks

After riding in wind and rain for 2 hours on horseback, we rested at a yurt and snacked on Mongolian cheese, milk tea, and cookies.

The milk tea was more creamy than sweet. Mongolians add a kind of popped grain into the tea, but I preferred to drink the tea without the grain. The cheese were all sweet and hard and had a sweet tart texture. The snacks were definitely something you would have to develop a taste for.

Mongolian Milk Tea; Mongolian Cheese and Cookies

Getting ready for another hour of riding in the rain

Mutton, Mutton, and More Mutton: Dining in the Kubuqi Desert and Xilamuren Grasslands

Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia has become a touristy place so much of the local cuisine has been adapted to the pan-Chinese palate. For example, the spicy cabbage stir-fry is a Northeast Chinese dish, popular in Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces. You will always find this dish at a Northeast Chinese banquet. Most of the dishes we had at the Kubuqi desert were not truly Inner Mongolian. If you don't have mutton on the table, then it ain't Inner Mongolian.

Spicy Cabbage Stir-fry; Stir-fry Pork with Mu Er and Cucumbers

Chicken; Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes


Fluffy Steamed Bun

Out on the Xilamuren Grasslands, the yurt restaurant managed to churn out one feast after another with some authentic touches...until they whipped out the crazy rave party at the end...

Xilamuren Grassland Yurts; Yurt Restaurant

Customary to drink bai jiu from the same cup as everyone else before a big meal

Inner Mongolian Banquet

Garlic Cucumber Salad; Bean Curd Strands Salad

Cold Buckwheat Noodles in a Spicy Sauce; Stir-fried Celery

Mutton & Potatoes Stew; Some Kind of Cold Liver

Mutton; Stir-fried Mutton Head

Inner Mongolian Breakfasts...Pretty Darn Good!

Inner Mongolia was full of surprises during Labor Day weekend. Inner Mongolia is known for great expanses of blue sky and vast and green grasslands. We got a weekend of rainy, cloudy, and muddy mush. It was still an amazing trip, for which I would happily go through another round of rain, wind, and freeze. The Inner Mongolian experience was certainly enhanced by the surprisingly delicious meals we had. Let's begin with the breakfasts.

The journey started with a savory, flakey, and warm breakfast sandwich that is made from shao1 bing3 (a pan-fried sesame pastry) and sliced soy-marinated beef. This beats the breakfast sandwiches at MacDo...and it's plane food!

Shao Bing with Soy Marinated Beef Breakfast Sandwich on Air China

No one expected that there could be a real 5-star hotel in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. Alas, modernization is quickly working its way into remote parts of China. For better or for worse, my tummy was certainly happy to see waffles and omlettes at the breakfast buffet before setting off into the Xilamuren grasslands, a journey filled with mutton, mutton, and more mutton.

Hohhot hotel breakfast buffet...yes, this is in Inner Mongolia!

The last plates of non-Inner Mongolian food in Inner Mongolia

When we moved to Mongolian yurts in the Xilamuren grasslands, I thought that we could forget about yummy food much less a decent breakfast. I'm such an urban snob! The breakfast is better than the cold, lifeless continental breakfasts at modern motels/hotels in the states! Bridget and I were addicted to the fried sweet bread. It was the perfect food after a freezing night with the wind and rain blowing into our yurts. The warm, milky bread gave a poof of steam as we took our first bites. Bliss!

Morning on the Xilamuren Grasslands

Mongolian Breakfast of Warm Soy Milk, Fried Sweet Bread, Egg Drop Soup, Hard Boiled Eggs, and Pickles

We didn't realize just how bad-ass can be in Inner Mongolia until we came upon this savory crepe stand at the mouth of an antiques market street. The crepe lady brushed the crepe with a special sauce, then cracked an egg on top and flipped the crepe. Next, she dusted the crepe with parsley, sesame, and scallions and cracked a crunchy, poofy fried pastry into the middle of the crepe and wrapped everything together burrito-style.

Making a Savory Crepe


Savory Crepe


Hands down, the best breakfast I had in China