The Kingsway unit that lost its eight-year lamb hot pot tenant a few weeks ago already has a new operator cooking.
Kroren Uyghur Restaurant has moved into the old Fortune Lamb Dining unit on Kingsway in Vancouver, opening in soft launch mode at the end of April 2026.
It is a different operator with a different cuisine.
The pitch is Authentic Uyghur Cuisine and Lanzhou Beef Noodles, with a partial nod back to the lamb-heavy menu the room used to be known for.
The turnover was fast.
Signage flipped within weeks, and Kroren was already cooking by the last weekend of the month.
We dropped by during soft opening, and the room itself has barely changed.
Same compact, no-frills dining room, same hole-in-the-wall energy, same sense that the entire pitch is what is sitting in front of you.
The menu is small for now.
Noodles do most of the heavy lifting, with a short side of cold starters and a handful of lamb plates carrying over from the previous tenant.
We ordered the Braised Beef Noodle Soup and a plate of lamb that was a special that day.
The noodles are hand-stretched in the back, pulled fresh per order, and you can hear the slap of dough from the table.
In the bowl they came out chewy and springy, with enough bite to hold the soup instead of going limp halfway through.
The broth was the main event.
Deep, beef-forward, faintly spiced, with a slick of fat on the surface that you keep going back to between bites of noodle.
And the portion was MASSIVE.
The bowl arrived closer to a small basin than a regular noodle bowl, and we were halving it before we even started.
It seems to be a pattern for Lanzhou noodles that we will gladly take.
The kitchen also sent out a small set of cold starters, a rotating mix of marinated and brined vegetables.
Crunchy, sharp, vinegar-bright, and useful for cutting between heavier bites of lamb and noodle.
The service is where the soft opening still shows.
We had to flag down staff for a spoon, then again for napkins, things that should have landed before the food did.
Hopefully, that gets patched up before the real launch.
Zoom out and Kroren lands in a quiet but real Uyghur moment for Metro Vancouver.
Uyghur cuisine and Lanzhou noodles have gone from RARE on Vancouver menus a few years ago.
Now it seems to be the meta alongside the rise of HK-style cafes and cart noodle spots in Metro Vancouver.
In the last two years, we’ve seen the opening of IMRAN, Caravanserai, and Hui Flavor.
Kroren joins other recently opened food spots in Vancouver like M Cha Bar, Tahini’s Downtown, and Nami Coal Harbour.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 3377 Kingsway #3, Vancouver, BC V5R 5K6