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A taste of Kunming

Duogeshui Dai Flavour Restaurant (Simaxiang branch)

多哥水傣味餐厅（司马巷店）

Dai food from Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan, cooked properly, in central Kunming. This is Southeast Asian cooking inside China — lemongrass, galangal, fresh herbs, sour fruit, pounded salads and things grilled in banana leaf — and it is the single most useful thing to eat in Kunming if you want to understand how far Yunnan sits from the rest of Chinese food.

¥60–85 per person≈ US$8.94Ctrip Kunming list No. 12Simaxiang (司马巷), near Nanping Street, central Kunming
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Why come here

A place worth making time for

No. 12 on Ctrip's Kunming must-visit food list, rated 4.4

The house favourites

What to order

Point at the Chinese. Staff will understand it even where the menu has no English at all.

  • Lemongrass grilled tilapia (香茅草烤鱼)
  • Pineapple sticky rice (菠萝饭)
  • Pounded green papaya salad (舂青木瓜)
  • Grilled pork with herbs in banana leaf (包烧猪肉)

What it actually tastes like

Dai cooking uses raw herbs in quantity, strong sourness and fermented fish or shrimp paste in some dipping sauces — the dip may be the strongest-tasting thing on the table. Some traditional Dai dishes include raw or lightly cured meat; ask before ordering anything described as 剁生 or 生皮.

Allergens in this kitchen

fishpeanutshellfishsoygluten/wheatsesame

This is the kitchen, not one dish. Woks, fryers, blanching water and utensils are shared in almost every Chinese restaurant, so for a serious allergy treat the whole premises as the unit rather than ordering around it.