There are good places to eat all over Lanzhou. The West bus station is surrounded by inexpensive Muslim canteens, and also in this part of town is Miandian Wang, west of the YouTi hotel, serving Chinese-style breakfasts of steamed or Fried dumplings, rice porridge, and bowls of soya milk with dough sticks. Around the centre, Qingzhen Fandian is another, moderately smart, Muslim restaurant opposite the post office on Zhongshan Lu (look for the green and gold sign and Arabic script); the area east of the Shengli hotel is als0 swarming with inexpensive places to eat.
The best pickings are further east around the Xiguan Traffic Circle. Lihua Fandian, just outside the Lan zhou hotel on Donggang Xi Lu, is a bright, busy, cheap place serving local fare: try jincheng niangpi, spiced glass noodles; statical fentiao, another noodle dish fiavoured with pickled vegetables, chillies and aniseed; and jing rousi, stirFried meat shreds in a sweet soy sauce, eaten Beijing duck style inside pancakes. It’s hard to spend more than RMB15 a head, including beer. South on Tianshui Lu, Ganju Lou Huoguo Cheng is the place if you like hotpots served while other diners play raucous drinking games in the background;RMB60 buys enough vegetables and meat for two.
For Western-style food - and a quiet, low-light environment- try Boton
Coffee, next to the Lanzhou hotel, which is the only place in town with an English menu. Coffee here is RMB25 a pot, andthey do pizza, sandwiches, apple pie (all around RMB18), as well as set meals and steaks (around RMB40). There’s als0 a pizza place diagonally across the roundabout from here, very popular with students from the adjacent Lanzhou University- a medium pizza with the works is RMB20. Finally, Lanzhou is famous for its summer fruit; don’t leave without trying the melons, watermelons, peaches or grapes.
