Dolan Uyghur Food Heaven

Although a Chinese restaurant the middle eastern /​Turkish influence is apparent the moment you step in. It smells Devine for a start. It’s a very unassuming restaurant, easily missed if your not paying attention.
It’s known for its noodles so that’s what we ordered. Noodles with lamb, capsicum and I even tasted some small pieces of potato. We found the size our of plates amusing (bread and butter plate size — small) Compared to the size of the plates our food arrived on (large and huge!) The noodles were delicious. We noticed they were a little firmed than we were used to but assumed that was traditional and it certainly didn’t retract from our enjoyment of the meal.
I’d let my lunch companion order so didn’t realised we’d ordered two dishes. I was well into our noodle dish and feeling quite satisfied when the huge plate full of large pieces of lamb in a tomato based sauce with onion and Turkish bread arrived. Yum!
I kept picking at that Turkish bread and sopping up that delicious sauce well beyond the point at which I should have stopping! Yes it was that good!
Lamb is obviously a speciality of the house and they do it well.
Arriving hungry is the way to go.
Décor is clean but no frills. All the staff were really nice. Check it out.

Add tons of fresh vegetables to good Chinese and then kick it up with interesting Turkish-​like flavours — cumin, lamb, skewers, tons of spice — and you get Uyghur food. This place impresses everyone I’ve introduced it to and was one of the few «must-​eats» we had on my last visit back to Melbourne.
When people ask me for a CBD restaurant recommendation, something they may not have tried before, this is my go-​to for instant foodie street cred. It’s a small, family-​run joint of 6 or 7 tables on Little Lonsdale close to the State Library. You walk out of here having had a much higher-​quality meal for a fraction of the price of some larger, more-​established ethnic restaurant you’d find closer to Chinatown.
Highlights include the dry stir-​fried lamb noodles (go dry and embrace the seasoning) and the lamb or beef egg bread dish which knocked my foodie friend’s socks off.
The staff is efficient and friendly, and you’ll often see the crew eating before or after meals together.
Pro-​tip: polish off a great meal with a small tart yoghurt they serve out of a small fridge.
Cash only!
PS — It’s technically BYOB but as the food is halal, I think it’s okay to wait until after lunch or dinner to hit Trunk or Whisky & Alement around the corner afterward if you feel like having a tipple.
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Disclosure — I’m a former Unilocal employee.

I’ve never had Uyghur food before so I was quite excited and intrigued when my friend wanted to take me here! We had the boiled lamb dumplings, tawa kawap, and the uyghur yogurt drink.
There haven’t been many dumplings that I’ve come across and didn’t like before and these ones here were no exception. You get 12 pieces for $ 9.5 which is a pretty good in my opinion. But just like what the other reviews on here said, the serving sizes are huge! When the tawa kawap came out, my friend and I just knew that we both wouldn’t be able to finish it on our own. But oh man it was so goodd! I’m not much of a meat eater but those lamb chops with the turkish bread and sauce were too good to pass up My friend had highly recommended the yoghurt drink and I’m so glad that I had gotten that. It was a nice refreshing drink to have alongside all of the heavy meats and bread that we were eating.
Service wasn’t that outstanding there but that’s sort of expected when you go to a cheaper Asian place. You go there for the food, not the service. I hope to be back soon with more of my friends so that we can tackle on more of the big dishes soon hopefully!

We come here every week for lamb dumplings, but it’s nice to try other things. Today it’s oxtail soup as a late lunch. It’s a broth if carrot and… goji berries (and obviously ox tail). Go figure! btw — delicious.

After hearing rave review from friends craving the delicious handmade noodles from this unpronounceable hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant, I finally got here to try it for myself.
Thankfully I was with a group of 5 — because the portions are enormous and even with 5 hungry diners, we couldn’t get through it all. I had seen the warnings from other Unilocal reviews, but we didn’t heed this and ordered two meat dishes, two vegetable dishes and some lamb buns — it was WAY too much food. We could have gotten away with 2 – 3 dishes tops. However, the whole meal including a round of soft drinks (they don’t sell booze) was $ 15 a head and we rolled out of the place.
The noodles were delicious (although could have been a bit hotter both in spice and temperature), but my favourite dish was the stir fried eggbread with lamb and mixed vegetables. I ate more than I should of because it was so tasty.
A little pot of chili can be ordered for the table if you want to ramp up the heat, which I would suggest as on it’s own it’s not as punchy as I expected. If you overdo it or are simply sensitive to heat, they sell a yoghurt drink to put out the mouth-​fire.
I definitely could have gone without the steamed lamb buns and wouldn’t order them again. The filling was really dry and tasteless, I found myself trying to mop up the oils from other dishes with it to cut through the blandness of them. These are also massive, bigger than stomach size and are very, very doughy. If you want to try a few dishes, definitely avoid these as they’ll put you out of action pretty quickly.
The dishes are quite oily, so if you’re feeling a bit dusty from the night before, I could safely say this place would have a magic cure for all your ails. I probably wouldn’t come here all the time (I’d be the size of a lamb bun if I did!), but next time I’m considering a cheap and cheery Chinatown meal, I would head this way instead.

The food is great. The price is great. The venue… not as great.
Food:
Loved the Aqqik Korma Lagmeni (dry stir fried handmade noodles with chilli and lamb), Samask Tamilk Tarhamak (cucumber salad with garlic sauce) and Poshkal Koy Gish Kormisi (stir fried eggbread with finely cut lamb or beef and mixed vegetables).
Price:
$ 78 for 5 people! We had lots of food and one round of (soft) drinks. Ridiculously cheap.
Venue:
Tiny, cramped, loud, floodlit, classroom style seating and décor.
I’ll definitely go back for the food.

Huge serves for little money — everyone is happy right? Pretty much.
I ordered a serve of lamb noodles which could have fed a small village. I quite enjoyed the first few bites — lots of veggies, lots of noodles and nearly enough lamb. Things came undone when I tasted the sauce by itself. It just wasn’t nice. I’m not sure why given it tasted absolutely fine with the dish as a whole. I went back to combining everything but I couldn’t quite enjoy it the same as before.
I will go back to try other dishes if I’m nearby but in the meantime, will just have to keep thinking about why that sauce was so wrong…

Uyghur food in Melbourne? Wait, what’s an Uyghur? How do you even pronounce that? Apparently it sounds like «wEEger.» The Uyghur’s are a Turkic ethnic group that live mainly in Eastern China… so Uyghur food is an unusual combination of Turkish-​Chinese food. And it happens that there is a small group of Uyghurs living in Melbourne and this is their go to restaurant!
Dolan Uyghur Food Heaven is a total hole in the wall. I mean a total hole in the wall, it is not shiny and new, it is not even that clean. It’s the sort of place you walk by dozens of time without giving the slightest thought of walking in. Luckily a co-​worker of mine had been before and insisted we give it a go during my last trip down to Melbourne.
But, wow, what a cool find. Huge portions of food at very reasonable prices. Be warned though… when they say something is spicy, it is spicy! Damn was some of those dishes packed on the heat! The standout dishes were some of the homemade noodle options (see pics), though we also had some braised meat dishes that were served on giant pancakes (hard to explain, the closest thing I’ve had before was Ethiopian cuisine) that were quite tasty.
There you have it… looking for an undiscovered divey gem in Melbourne? Love spicy food? Then head to Dolan Uyghur Food Heaven and you will indeed be in Uyghur Heaven.

All I knew about this place was that «it’s kind of a Turkish, Indian, Chinese mash-​up of cuisines and it’s awesome». Well the person who spoke those words was spot on. The food was kind of like a lot of other things I’d tried before, but not quite like any in particular.
I absolutely over-​ordered on my first visit. I was in the market for a quick take-​away option for three diners (including a three year old!) and because it was all so cheap I figured the portions would be small and so ordered five things.
The braised lamb with handmade noodles was amazing. We spied the chef making the noodles only minutes before our order was ready. They came in a container separate to the lamb, which was a fragrant soupy mess of delicious lamb, onion and green capsicum.
The braised chicken and mushroom came in two containers, extra soupy and hot-​pot-​y. The chicken fell from the bones and although it was listed as «extra spicy» on the menu, I found it more fragrant than burn-​your-​mouth off.
We also got cucumber salad ($ 6) and some braised greens and mushrooms, but it was the steamed lamb buns (5 for $ 10) that stole the show! I figured these would be small dumpling like numbers but instead they were massive, bigger than my fist, and weighed a tonne! Inside the hot doughy bun was a tasty mix of chopped lamb and cabbage. Miss 3 gave these, the noodles and the cucumber high praise by demolishing more food than you would imagine was humanly possible. Impressive stuff.
And for this massive feast (of which we only ate half)? $ 49.

Amazing! This is like Australia’s version of Burma Superstar (a San Francisco restaurant) – very interesting and innovative (at least to a western palate), a hole in the wall, and an incredible spicy experience!
I was thoroughly impressed with everything we eat, but unfortunately I didn’t jot it all down and now I can’t name the dishes for the life of me.
I was told that the Uyghurs are a small group of Chinese refugees who happen to have an enclave in Melbourne. More on them here:
Their food is amazing and worth trying, and is at very reasonable prices. This is a perfect hole-​in-​the-​wall experience for someone who wants to try something new.