Food is a painful part of my budget.

A large, active male, shopping for 1, and with only time to cook 1 meal daily, at best. I can't imagine spending less than 1000 yuan/month on food, and I can see needing up to 3000, even if eating 90 % Chinese food, and no i am not overweight or sick.

The cheapest nutritious and tasty meals out that I have found (for a 6 ft or over adult) run about 15 yuan.

So what places have you found that offer the best deals?

Food made of more than just hot water, sauces or rice noodles?

I will go first-

Just off of Wu Yi Lu, on the same small street as the front entrance of the Zhong yI Yiyuan, is a place I like.

From Wu Yi Lu, go in front of the hospital, the street is kind of stone. Pass the dog sellers and hawkers and after about 100m you will see a key cutter and then a cafeteria style restaurant on your right, with shaokao out front. It also serves jiaozi, and rice noodle soup-both of which taste decent, for 6 yuan.

But you might need more variety, nutrition, and quantity than that-so go to the back and and check out the steam table. You can fill up on a variety of vegetable, meat, and tofu dishes, sichuan and yunnan style, for 13 yuan. The staff are friendly as well.

I often go to the Hanizu Shaokao place down the alley off of Wenlin Jie between the mouth of Wenhua Xiang and Jianshe Lu.

A plate of egg fried rice and a chao-ed veggie are well under 20.

www.gokunming.com/en/listings/item/han_32508/hani_zu_barbecue

johnny9, I'm in a similar situation, and find that cafeterias are by far the most economical. Of course many require a 'fanka', but some take cash. A smaller one is located inside Kunming College's Kunshilu campus, across the road and a bit west of Baihui Shangchang.

Not sure about nutritious...

You can still find small restaurants where you can get a meatdish for 12, a vegetable dish for 6 and rice for 1 or 2 kuai. Enough for even the hungriest of Americans :)

Also many Muslim noodle shops can whip a big portion of ban mian up for 7-10 kuai. Alternatively make it chao mian. If the cook knows what he is doing it's some damn good food for the money.

I have to admit I am prejudiced. Being a meat eater I love Muslim restaurants, the food hygiene and general hygiene is better in most cases.

To correct the first post, the restaurant is more like 300 meters from wu yi lu, past the small park (you will see on your right).It is before you get to the beautiful old Chinese buildings which house big pharmacies.
You won't see it from the street, you need to be on the sidewalk. During the day it is just 5 meters past a keymaker stand. I will get their name next time I go.

As to the muslim noodle houses-I second this!
BUT, i find I need to ask them for extra meat and veggies, and that brings the price up to 15 rmb. A good deal.

I'm not sure what it's called, but if you turn up jian she lu from yi er yi da jie, about 300 meters up the road on the right hand side of the road, just before the gate to shi da, is a place that makes excellent gai fan. Their best dish is probably their gong bao ji ding, for 9 kuai.