Central Asia - Something Missing

6/25
Yes, I know... after making excuses for starting the blog late, the posts have then been few and far between. Ok, they haven't even been few and far between, just non-existent. But in my defense, for the past month or so we have been traveling through Central Asia. Anyone who has been in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Kyrgystan I am sure will back me up when I say these countries are not exactly the gastronomic capital of the world. As far as I can tell, they have 3 basic dishes:

→ Shashlyk: Essentially a kebab (note, not the kebab you get at 2AM in any English market town after a night on the lash, but a skewer). You can get shashlyk in a variety of meat types such as chicken or beef, but the most common is mutton. In some (read most) restaurants or chaikhanas (teahouse) you get a tiny little skewer that I would usually mistook for a sort of appetizer or sample. But luckly they are generally cheap, so you know by the price to order two or three at a time. In a few touristy places (in Bukhara's central square, Lyabi-Hauz, for example) you get a good size portion, but with a price to match.

→ Plov: This is the national dish of Uzbekistan and common throughout central Asia. Those into deducing word origin have probably already guessed this is a rice based dish similar to Italian pilau. And it is, being rice, boiled meat, maybe a touch of vegetables such as carrots or onions, all swimming in oil. Now there are some people who really like rice. I am not one of them. If I were to order an Indian takeaway, I'll add a spoonful of rice or two, just to add some texture to the curry. But I simply can not see the point in diluting the fine taste of the curry with all that unnecessary starch. So imagine my horror when our guide in Uzbekistan (Mansur), cooked Plov for us on one of our first nights. First there was the entire bottle of oil he added to the pot. Yes, there was 25 of us to feed, but it was still ALLOT of oil. Ok, I am past that, but then he goes to dish up my portion... a regular dinner plate loaded (and I mean loaded) with rice and oil (no vegetables added here) and the smallest sliver of meat you can imagine. And not even an ounce of spice that I could deduce to take away from the blandnest of the rice. This was not a dinner, this was cruel joke and I went to bed hungry. Easily the worst camp meal I have had on the trip. I don't blame Mansur, just his country for not being more imaginative in their choice of national dish.

→ Laghman: This is sort of a noodle soup (aka shorpa) with boiled meat, sometimes a wee bit spicy, but often rather bland. Although I have never been a big fan of things like chicken noodle soup, laghman is really not too bad. The problem is, you just can not live on a diet of shashlyk and laghman for over a month. And at times that seems like what we were doing. Any restaurant you went into would have those 3 options and little else. They may have a big menu (like the Hotel Asia in Khiva), but when you go to order anything other then shashlyk, plov or laghman, the waiter will just shake his head and tell you they are out of it.

There are a few milk based products I was able to try, which were interesting if not quite edible in any quantity. In Uzbekistan, a long-distance taxi driver stopped to buy Kurut, which as I understand it is a dried yogurt rolled into a ping-pong ball shape. I somehow managed to get the first one down me, only for the driver to offer me another. Gee, thanks. Two is more then enough for a life-time. My fellow passengers could have at least tried to finish the first one instead of hiding them in an empty chips packets! While visiting a yurt in Kyrgystan, I was also able to try fresh mare's milk (surprisingly tasty, almost like a sweet cow's milk) and fermented mare's milk (edible, but I couldn't even get through half a tea cup of the stuff).

That is more of less what I have to say about Central Asian cuisine. We did visit a couple of very nice chaikhanas. But as I said, the food left quite something to be desired. One positive aspect though was the 'seating' which is generally on a tapchan. This is a bed-like platform covered with carpet and topped with a low table. You are meant to take off your shoes and sort of lounge around while eating. Didn't think I would like that, but have found it far beats eating at a table with chairs.

By the time we got to Bishkek, we were able to find a bar serving very tasty burgers and a cafe with wifi and pizza. Neither may have been as good as what I could get in DC or London, but after a month of little choice, it was a little bit of heaven. In a few days we will be in China and while I understand the fare to be had in the majority Muslim Silk Road cities of places like Kashgar is similar to Central Asian cuisine, the end is near.