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Walking inside Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ feels like being welcomed into owners Sudai Ma’s and Isaming Deng’s home.
While the downtown Mountain View restaurant is large and can seat 180 people, it still has a cozy, warm and inviting ambiance. A row of traditional home-style tatamis decorated with plush, vibrant pillows sit to the left, a private dining space with karaoke is straight ahead and a bustling dining room can be found at the right. In the back, the owners have plans to transform the outdoor patio into a backyard barbecue area, with additional seating and grills coming soon.
The menu, crafted by Ma herself, highlights comfort foods eaten in her and her husband’s hometown of Xinjiang. This autonomous territory in northwest China has a cuisine featuring a blend of cultural influences — including Persian, Turkish, Mongolian and Chinese — which is not easily found along the Peninsula. Prior to Halal Street’s opening, Mrs. Khan in Menlo Park was the only local restaurant specializing in Uyghur cuisine.
A home cook taught by her grandmother, Ma’s dishes do not have MSG, and everything is halal – you won’t find pork or alcohol, and all meat and poultry is treated humanely and slaughtered according to specific guidelines.
Chef Zufar Osman makes hand-pulled noodles fresh to order at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Chef Zufar Osman holds up a plate of hand-pulled noodles fresh to order at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Eating halal is very important to Ma, who practices Islam, and she said she hopes her restaurant is a place of inclusivity – where people from all backgrounds, religions and dietary practices can come together over a meal.
“My goal is to let all of the community sit on the same table and eat together,” general manager Ali Omer translated for Ma, who spoke in Mandarin.
Ma and her husband immigrated from Xinjiang to the East Bay six years ago, but the idea to open a restaurant didn’t come about until the pandemic, when the couple and their young son took a road trip to Orlando. They quickly realized how difficult it was to find restaurants serving halal offerings during their trip.
“I think maybe a lot of people like me have the same situation when they drive out of town,” Deng said.
Lian Zhi Peng prepares meat, vegetables and sauce as Zufar Osman prepares fresh laghman noodles in the background at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
A waitress delivers a plate of laghman at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Even in the Bay Area, which Ma and Deng chose to live in due to the larger Muslim community, halal Chinese food is extremely hard to come by. So Ma started a catering business marketed to a group chat of about 500 people looking for halal Chinese food. One of those group chat members, Omer, is now the general manager of Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ, and his friend Zufar Osman is the head chef. Both Omer and Osman also grew up in Xinjiang.
In June 2023, Ma and Deng opened their first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Halal Street Hot Pot & Cuisine in Newark, offering all-you-can-eat halal hot pot, sushi, boba tea, Xinjiang Uygur kabobs, Xinjiang handmade noodles and more.
And at the end of January, they opened their second restaurant, Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in the former Amarin space in Mountain View. (Amarin fans need not worry, as its second location remains open across the street.)
While Halal Street’s newest location doesn’t offer hot pot, it does offer dishes not found at the original location, including its elaborate whole grilled fish dishes ($59.98). With four flavors – cumin spicy, tomato, peppercorn and pickled – a whole fish is marinated for eight to 10 hours before roasting. The fish is served in a flavor bomb of boiling beef bone broth as well as pickled cabbage and tofu. Additional sides like nan (bread) can be added to bulk up the extravagant dish.
Besides the grilled fish, Omer recommends trying dishes like dapanji and laghman ($19.99-$28.98). Dapanji, also known as big plate chicken, is a Chinese-Uyghur fusion dish that gained popularity in the mid to late 1990s consisting of spicy, hot chicken stew over hand-pulled noodles and potatoes. Laghman is a traditional Uyghur hand-pulled noodle dish with vegetables, beef and gravy.
“Most of the Xinjiang people will eat (this) during their whole life,” Omer said. “And (it’s) everybody’s favorite food, not only Xinjiang, in the Middle Asia, also Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, all the -stans, all the people know about the laghman.”
Laghman, a traditional Uyghur dish consisting of hand-pulled noodles with vegetables, beef and gravy ($19.99), and samsa, hand-held lamb pies ($8.99), at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Adrienne Mitchel. 
Dapanji, or big plate chicken, is a Chinese Uyghur fusion dish consisting of spicy, hot chicken stew over hand-pulled noodles and potatoes ($28.98). Photo by Adrienne Mitchel.
Other notable dishes include samsa (small lamb pies), lamb polo (a type of lamb pilaf) and roasted lamb rack. Appetizers go for $6.98-$12.99, chef’s specialties are $9.98-$88, vegetable dishes $12.98-$14.98 and kebabs are $38-$88.
For drinks ($5.98-$12.98), Halal Street offers homemade yogurt, hot mint tea and what they lovingly refer to as “kawasaki,” a made-up term combining the words kvass and sake. Kvass is a cold and refreshing nonalcoholic fermented drink made from rye bread. The beverage is very popular in Xinjiang and often consumed with barbecue. It comes in flavors like honey, pomegranate, honeydew and more.
The dessert menu features three dishes: cheese-baked sweet potato, glutinous rice cake and yogurt zongzi ($8.98-$9.98). The yogurt zongzi is unique to the Mountain View location, featuring sticky rice, tangy housemade yogurt and sweet blackberry sauce.
In addition to spreading her culture’s cuisine to the Bay Area, Ma is excited to show other aspects of Uyghur culture. Guests may choose to sit at one of the four tatamis in the restaurant, a low table where people sit cross-legged or on their knees. Tatamis are the norm for dining in Xinjiang, and Ma is happy to provide that at-home feel. She is also considering having the servers wear doppas, a traditional Uyghur square hat featuring colorful and embroidered fabric.
“We want to let the American community know about Chinese halal food,” Deng said. “At the same time, we want to allow the Muslim community to eat out when they leave their home.”
Chef Zufar Osman makes hand-pulled pearl noodles fresh to order at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Traditional Uyghur nan is prepared at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Chef Zufar Osman uses an Uyghur nan stamp to add designs and texture to the nan he prepares at Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ in downtown Mountain View. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Ma and Deng plan to continue expanding Halal Street, and hope to eventually have restaurants nationwide.
Halal Street Xinjiang Cuisine & BBQ, 174 Castro St., Mountain View; 650-386-5103, Instagram: @halalstreet2023. Open Monday to Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5-9 p.m., Friday to Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30-9:30 p.m.
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