I love Xinjiang cuisine and Altun Orda was supposed to have some of the best in town. Like Kashgar, the restaurant’s architecture & decor showed Middle Eastern, Russian, and Victorian influences.
There was metal detector just behind these beautiful wooden doors, so I didn’t feel comfortable taking photos inside. And especially not after drawing the whole restaurant’s attention when I clocked myself on an absurdly low-hanging wooden design element at the top of the grand staircase inside. (No, it did not make the pleasing sound of the beam in Kyoto.)
I had tea, pomegranate juice, rice pilaf with mutton, raisins, & yogurt, and mutton kebabs. Good, but I still preferred my Wolverine kebabs.