Redwood City Social

Join us for a scrumptious dinner at Mrs Khan Uyghur Cuisine.

Casey and I happened upon this little gem of a restaurant and absolutely loved it. I went back a second time already!

Please be on time, as we are making a reservation. Also, it is appreciated if you bring enough cash to cover whatever you order and enough for tip.

****Please add up your total and multiply by 1.32 to include tax and tip to make it easier for all at the end.

Here are some details from a SF Chronicle review from March of this year -

Cesar Hernandez

March 29, 2023

Almira pulls noodles by hand at Mrs Khan Uyghur Cuisine in Menlo Park.

After a single meal at Mrs Khan, you could easily feel like a noodle expert.

Each visit to the surprising, enticingly spicy Uyghur restaurant — which is unexpectedly located in Menlo Park — is like a crash course on the cuisine’s diverse noodles and varying characteristics.

You can try long flat varieties in the laghman or slippery gluten-free versions in the spicy rice noodles. In the gigantic chicken korma ($34/$45) — often referred to as “big plate chicken” — the springy noodles had the dense girth of biang biang noodles, hand-stretched Chinese noodles named after the “bang” sound of the dough hitting a table. Tucked underneath brown chicken morsels, potatoes and peppers, those long noodles soaked up the blood-red sauce. It’s the kind of hearty food you’d eat to battle a harsh winter.

There are two Mrs. Khans to thank for this intoxicating food: sisters Almira and Kalbi, who split the kitchen duties. Almira handles everything outside of the naan and noodles, which is Kalbi’s domain. She stretches and pulls dough by hand, boiling then shocking noodles in cold water for optimal chew.

Neither is actually named Khan: The sisters made up the surname as a nod to the Khan title given to rulers in Central Asia; Almira meant to name the restaurant “Ms. Khan” but accidently wrote “Mrs Khan.” The sisters fear that their family in Xinjiang might be put in danger if word got out that they opened a restaurant in the U.S., so The Chronicle agreed not to publish their last names in accordance with its anonymous sources policy. Almira and Kalbi are Uyghurs, an ethnic Turkic group that predominantly identify as Muslim, from Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China. The United States government has called the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang by the Chinese state a genocide.

Kalbi left Xinjiang for the U.S. in 2010 to go to college, and Almira joined her five years later. They started a limo service in Sacramento in 2016. But what the sisters really wanted was to open a restaurant. In Sacramento, they couldn’t find their people’s food and missed it dearly.

On a visit to the Bay Area last year, they noticed a closed Japanese barbecue restaurant in sleepy, suburban Menlo Park. Almira peeked through the building's windows envisioning the Uyghur restaurant she and her sister had been dreaming of for years. Without giving it much thought, the sisters applied for the lease. The landlord warned them it might be difficult to find an audience in Menlo Park because the city had never seen anything like Uyghur food before. Ultimately, he gave them a shot.

Today, the restaurant is already drawing lines of curious diners.

Join us for Happy Hour at the Waterdog Tavern in Belmont at 5:30pm on Wed, 10/18!

The tavern is generously extending their Happy Hour pricing to our group from 5:30pm - 7:30pm. They have a great selection of appetizers, wines, beers, cocktails, and (our favorite) mocktails! Please be sure to tip your server well. :)

Bring: We'll be sitting outside, so bring your usual Bay Area layer(s) in case the temperature drops.

How to find us: Ask for the RWC Social Meetup Happy Hour at the front door. You'll be directed to the back of the restaurant and down a flight of steps to their outdoor space.

We look forward to seeing you there. :)

Jade & Casey