Forums > Food & Drink > Kunming Chinese Food "We went to Laos with a Chinese friend and she was so miserable. Face long and sad from having to eat all that weird Laotian food."
Unless she was facing black curdled goat blood soup or chewy water buffalo jerky, Lao food is great and in general a lot better than Kunming food. Don't know why she had to "seek out" a Sichuan restaurant, which is nice once in a while, but it would have been more interesting to eat some western, Thai or Indian food, which is prepared very well in Laos (at least in the major cities).
Good places to eat in Kunming? Most western owned bars and restaurants including Salvador's, the French Cafe and Prague Cafe. Unfortunately, the Box bar is gone but hopefully there'll be something similar that goes in it's place.
Other good places? The Hong Kong (or is it Guangdong) noodle place next to the movie theatre just around the corner from Wenlin Jie. Don't remember the name right now, but their banana custards are delicious, not to mention their noodles and chai. It's about 30 Yuan for a bowl, but it's a large bowl at that. Definately a big step up from the local noodle places and with far more atmosphere.
Yitianyuan, a chain of Muslim restaurants (one branch is located directly opposite Carrefour Longquan road) is one of the best places in Kunming to eat Chinese food with a few friends around a round table with that rotating glass thing on top where all the dishes are placed.
When I like something, I tend to eat it again and again. When I'm with a friend (or just alone) I tend to go to Salvador's, the French Cafe, Prague Cafe, the Hong Kong noodle place, the Box (until it closed although I never went there very often), A Slice of Heaven etc. With a couple of friends, I tend to go to Yitianyuan.
Mixian? Not my favorite thing...I would never eat them by myself and if it's noodles, then I tend to stick with Brothers Jiang for cross-the-bridge noodles which are actually pretty good.
Riding into Kunming's future
发布者There's a flight from Kunming to Beirut? Wow...
Changshui Airport set to debut
发布者Some airlines, particularly international ones like THAI have not updated their systems to reflect the new airport. At the beginning, starting tomorrow, I'm sure there will be some passengers that won't know about the change and will thus go to the wrong airport and miss their flights.
Yunnan goes infrastructure crazy
发布者Yeah the Lijiang line is currently under construction, while the Ruili line is supposed to form part of a proposed Kunming-Myanmar rail link - it will probably also be constructed at some stage (as reported by GoKM last year) but I suspect it will take a little while.
Yunnan goes infrastructure crazy
发布者All of this is quite amazing, but even in China not everything goes to plan. Originally the proposed high speed railway from Kunming to Vientiane, Laos via Jinghong and Boten was supposed to be completed by 2015, but a number of issues will likely push back that project for another 10 or more years, though I do believe that it will eventually be built. Also, since the idea is to link south-western China with the south-east Asian coast, Thai and eventually Malaysian and Singaporean co-operation is vital to building this link in the first place; building a line only as far as Vientiane would likely turn out to be a white elephant project since the objective is to make most income from moving goods between SE Asia and SW China quickly via train rather than passengers and that requires linking SW China to a coastline - something which Laos doesn't have.
Regarding the Hekou line, they've been proposing that one for years now since trains stopped running between Kunming and Hekou in 2002. Finally this article mentions a new high-speed line is under construction, but this will be of little use unless the Vietnamese also build a complementary high-speed line on their side (sure, they already have an existing railway line running from Lao Cai via Hanoi down to Saigon, but it's rather slow). Also, the Vietnamese government recently turned down a proposal for converting their existing line into a high-speed line, citing the high cost and the low passenger volumes that would utilize the line.
Changshui Airport set to debut
发布者Wow, it's finally upon us. The new airport will finally open at the end of this month! Only thing is, I'd avoid non-essential travel in and out of this airport for the first couple of weeks since it will probably be more chaotic than usual and things may not go as planned (for example baggage claim may be unusually slow).
I like the statement "For travelers without cars, taxis are always an option." well of course they are. For starters, most people in Kunming still don't own a car despite all the cars on the roads these days. Secondly, even if you do have a car, who would drive to the airport in order to catch a flight and then park their car for the duration of their overseas or interprovincial stay there? I don't think long-term parking is well known in China so even a week's worth of parking could become very expensive and possibly more expensive than even in some western countries.
I am looking forward to the proposed direct Europe flights. Anyone have any idea about when these flights might begin and who which carriers will offer service (presumably Chinese carriers I would imagine)?