Eerkins Uyghur Cuisine

Amazing cuisine - the gluten free noodles with lamb were so delicious. I love the massive tea selection, as well.

I think Ilchi is the best Uyghur restaurant in DC. Let’s go through the hits. The polo (pilaf) is absolutely divine—it’s savory, aromatic, and somehow achieves a textural delicacy and refinement that is pretty rare for lamb-and-rice dishes. The guyru laghman (stir-fried noodles, with noodles made in-house) are perfectly al dente and offer a wonderful balance of savory and spicy. They also offer that dish’s fun cousin, dingding somyen (stir-fried chopped noodles), which are the perfect comfort food. Their eggplant salad is to die for—they balance the vinegar really well here—and so is the langpung (starch and gluten salad, trust me, it’s amazing). I haven’t tried anything else, yet, but the classic laghman is supposed to be great. It’s very authentic, which is great, because Uyghur food actually suits all sorts of tastes. Ilchi’s predecessor at this location tended to make its dishes too sweet, but Ilchi went for the real complexity of Uyghur cuisine, which balances elements you’d recognize from Persian, Indian, and Chinese food. It pays off. The guyru laghman is simultaneously vegetal, umami, sesame, and lamby, with a subtle kick of Sichuan peppercorn. I wish it were less expensive, because I would eat here every day, if I could afford it. Quicker service would also be nice, but it seems like a family operation, so you really can’t complain. Still thinking about the guyru laghman. You know what, I’ll go there right now.