I live in western Yunnan and the choice of Western food is, well, non-existent. I'll be staying in Kunming for 3 days and I'm just dying for some good pizza, burgers, pasta, Mexican, Indian or whatever. The listings and reviews seem rather confusing (half the reviews give no stars, the other half 5, what's that about??) so if anyone could recommend places to go I'd be much obliged. It doesn't really matter if they're at Zhengyi, Beichen, Wen Lin Jie or whatever. Thanks.
Check out the Lost Garden Guesthouse. They have really good food, and Sandra (local German chef) does a Sunday brunch that is really, really great.
I like the French cafe on Wenlin for baguettes, pasta and burgers. O'Reilly's Irish pub on Beichen also does great burgers. :)
Never heard any reviews, but I image that the Wyndham Friday buffet will be up to snuff. If it's like other high end hotel buffets, it will be a good opportunity to binge on all kinds of stuff, especially cheese, cured meats, etc.
Reviews for other stuff (haven't tried most of the high-end Western restaurants because they're often style over substance and overpriced. I prefer to go out for a few nice meals when I go back to my home country each year):
Burgers: Lost Garden Sunday Brunch (caramelized onion burger) or O'Reilly's
Pizza: As You Like (vegetarian only), Lost Garden or Slice of Heaven
Pasta: Sal's (Tomato cream is good)
Burmese Curries: The Hump
Oh, and French Cafe for baguette sandwiches.
Also, Lost Garden for brunch. Sandra has handed over cooking duties to staff, but is on hand to supervise and do quality control. She's trained the staff well and food remains excellent. Only place I've ever seen eggs Benedict in KM.
Oh the hotel buffets.
When I was in Zhengzhou, it was 150 for buffet and soft drinks or 180 for buffet and wines/beer (locals didn't drink so much). Have a guess who could drink more than a bottle of wine over a session.
Not sure if Wyndham does bottomless wine glass. Worth a punt.
McDonald's. KFC. Pizza Hut. Forget the rest of those over priced places in Bei Chen or around Green Lake that can't cook a grilled cheese sandwich western style.
Howdy. The Irish Pub has the best burgers in Yunnan if not China. mmmm... the chili bacon cheese burger is the best. Totally AWEsome and worth checking out.. The Green Lake Hotel friday buffet used to have seafood on it and it was really awesome although it was pricey. Salvadors is closed until Monday the 5th but their deluxe quesadillias are great. Cacao just got new management/cooks but it still offers some pretty yummy mexican food, I recommend their quesadillias as well. The burritos are small but good... the guacomole is pricey and a bit watery. Lost Garden pizza is much better than Slice of Heaven in my opinion. I really like The Silver Spoon down from the Irish Pub as well.
The Irish Pub (O'Reilly's) makes a better burger than any I found (so far) in Canada or the USA. I talked to one of the owners about where they get the meat. They start with beef that they trim and grind themselves, so the patties did not come frozen from the supermarket. To top it off they use real cheese, not that processed stuff. Now you've made me hungry and they don't open till 4:00 on weekdays!
Mcdonald's, KFC and Starbucks in China are locally managed, so don't follow the same service and health practices as abroad.
I personally prefer to go to places managed by foreigners for that Western food fix.
What's also nice about O'Reilly's is that they can make meals until 1am. Does anyone know of other places that also make meals (not snacks) until after midnight?
