[Photo by Matt Hodges/chinadaily.com.cn]

Going all-terrain also spares you the agony of cardboard-flavored airplane food. In fact, the local cuisine, from grilled lamb to oat-flour noodles and dim sum, is one of the reasons to go.

The ubiquitous Baotou Little Lamb Hot Pot Restaurant is a good port of call for shuan yang rou (lamb hot pot). For obvious reasons, the thinly cut strips of leg and tail meat are of a higher quality than what you typically get in Shanghai.

Shao mai, or purse-shaped dumplings, proved another winner. They are stuffed with diced lamb / beef and sticky rice, a refreshing change from the shrimp-and-mushroom kind popular in Shanghai. Enunciate clearly or risk inadvertently ordering seasonal snacks (xiaomai), a bag of wheat (xiaomai) or China’s cost-cutting answer to the iPhone (Xiaomi).

Those with Superman-like constitutions may test their mettle with yangneizhang, a spicy soup made with sheep viscera, manaijiu (a form of baijiu, or distilled liqor, whose name translates as horse-milk-alcohol) and other inescapable facts of life in this part of the world.

A safer bet would be the Shangri-La Hotel’s barbecue buffet, served on outdoor patios under the stars. It offers scores of treats on skewers for less than 140 yuan a head. Everything is smeared in the same seasoning, but that’s just the way it is in these parts.

Road-trippers can take advantage of hotel’s “Indulge in Baotou” package for 840 yuan per night from Fridays to Sundays until end-December. This includes buffet breakfast at the Xin Café and a late-night barbecue buffet, unlimited use of the gym and pool, a 20 percent discount at the hotel’s F&B outlets and a late 3 pm checkout.

Alternatively, the hotel is offering a five-day grassland promotion until Sept 15 that includes four nights at its aforementioned two properties and one night in a deluxe yurt at Xilamuren for 20,888 yuan (US$3,330) for two people. Three-day packages start from 11,888 yuan.