🍽️ Oil-City Grill

Worker-town grill, big lamb skewers.

Oil-City Grill is the night-market food that grew up in Karamay, Xinjiang's oil-built city, carrying the imprint of oil-workers' late-night culture. Karamay grilling is famous for large lamb chunks on long skewers, turned over open fruit-wood fire and dusted generously with cumin, chili and salt. Beyond lamb skewers, roasted lamb kidney, heart tube, tendon and vegetables are all common—savory, charred and smoky. Rising from the Gobi desert as a petroleum boomtown, the city fills with bustling grill stalls after dark; workers and residents sit at long tables, eating skewers and cold drinks in a one-of-a-kind nightlife. It is both the continuation of Xinjiang's barbecue tradition in a northern industrial city and a window into the everyday street life of Karamay.