Noodles, who doesn’t like noodles? We’ve got ramen here, there and everywhere, there’s wait-in-line udon at Yume Ga Arukara in Porter Square and are always down for the spicy hand-cut noodles at Pagu. Newly opened in Cambridgeport is Jahunger by chef Subat Dilmurat, seeking to replicate the success of the Uyghur noodle shop of the same name in Providence, Rhode Island, that netted him a James Beard nod. The Cambridge locale on Brookline Street between Central Square and Memorial Drive takes over the space that was formerly Dimi’s Place, a neighborhood pizza shop that served Greek staples. The clean and spare interior remains largely the same with Uyghur cultural accents.
Uyghurs are a Turkic people of Xinjiang, a northwest region of China that is largely Muslim. Much of the cuisine is made from mutton – lamb – and rice and handmade noodles, all on display on Jahunger’s tight and highly appetizing menu.
Starters include lamb dumplings and kavap (lamb skewers), and lamb is the center of the quintessential Uyghur dish called polo, which is essentially a rice pilaf (you say pilaf, they say polo) that is slow cooked with a meat or poultry broth.
But noodles (hand-pulled rice) and spice is why one should come to Jahunger. The meefen is the mainstay: spicy noodles stir-fried with chili paste and chicken. I wimped out on the heat factor and went with the dish called the Original Meefen, which is ground chicken, diced scallions and crispy soy beans atop steamed noodles, all brought together by the subtle “special sauce” that threw no heat, though the ground chicken had a bit of a kick to it. The noodles – did I mention they are gluten free? – were supple and tender, yet surprisingly meaty and overall sublime in a way that is far different than Yume Ga Arukara’s udon.
The lamb dumplings as well as the egg and leek version are little pillows of juicy goodness. The soy sauce that accompanies them is low on the ginger quotient but has nice acrid accents to it. The dumpling wrappers, which as far as I can glean come only steamed, are, like the noodles, delicate and silky.
On a second sojourn I decided to up the heat factor and opted for the Langham noodles, which you can tell from slight imprecisions in form are hand-tugged. It comes with sautéed peppers (red and green), mushrooms and onions with thin slices of fried beef. It comes in a bowl, and the juice from the veggies and the light touches of chili form a broth of sorts, becoming more of a noodle soup. I could have skipped the beef – and largely did – but the combination of fresh, al dente veggies and soup-soaked noodles was a next-level experience, and one I’m particularly interested in reliving.
There are vegetarian options for most dishes if you ask, as well as veggies dishes on the wok side of the menu that include the Spicy Tiger (eggplant and other veggies done with chili and a garlic sauce) and stir-friend green beans. From the sea there’s a chili fish boil. A dish I keep seeing carted around in large, wide-mouth serving bowls not far off from a wok is the chicken stew, tender chunks of chicken marinated in Uyghur spices served with sautéed veggies atop a bed of potatoes and some of those rice noodles cut down to near angel-hair thinness. I feel I could make my way through such a serving solo, but it does look to be a meal for two. That stew and the polo are the two items on the menu you can only get in the restaurant (sorry, no to-go for those two).
The menu has beer and wine listed but Jahunger has still yet to start serving it – “soon” I am told.
Jahunger is not the first Uyghur eatery to land on the northern shores of the Charles. On Cambridge Street, Uyghur Silk Road opened in 2017 – also on my list to report back on. Its menu is different from Jahunger’s, and vaster.
Jahunger, 272 Brookline St., Central Square, Cambridge
Speaking of Pagu: Chef Tracy Chang and the good folks at Wulf’s Fish plan a Tuna Fest at the end of the month at which ceviche and the underappreciated tuna collar will be feted and feasted upon.
Tom Meek is a writer living in Cambridge. His reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in the WBUR ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
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