Eating out in the Silk Road city Samarkand was a mixed affair.
We got off to an excellent start with dinner in a traditional Uzbekistan family house. The rooms of the single-storey building were located around a central courtyard with three large fruit trees. Adorning one wall were two large black, red and white embroideries, known as Suzani, which girls begin making in their teenage years.
On arrival, a beautifully set table in the courtyard was laid with a simple tomato and cucumber salad with sour cream dressing, and vegetable pasties plump with pumpkin and spinach. Bowls of meatball soup with hearty chunks of potato and carrots was served virtually alongside a coleslaw-like salad, and a thin yoghurt drink with herbs: the table and our tums began to groan. The main dish was plov, which was fortunately placed in the middle of the table, so we could help ourselves. Whilst lamb is usually associated with plov, this was layers of rice, carrots, onions, chickpeas and raisins topped with tender beef cubes. This was different to the mix of ingredients we’d tried in Tashkent plov and according to the story, plov was originally carried from Samarkand to Tashkent and because it got cold on the journey, it had to be stirred to be reheated. We finished the feast with slices of juicy watermelon, cherries picked fresh from the fruit trees, and a bowl of moreish peanuts coated in sugar.
Tea, and particularly green tea, is the main drink in the country and is always served in bowls called piala. Our host discarded the first cup, as it is literally to clean the piala. She then poured the tea but returned it to the pot and repeated it twice, to help brew the tea. The piala were not filled so it could be refresh frequently with warm tea – if your cup is filled, you know it is time to leave.
On our following day, after a large lamb lunch whilst on a day trip to Shakhrisabz, we were not very hungry and visited the only place within walking distance of our hotel, the Boulevard Restaurant and Bakery. Whilst enjoying coffee and oat cookies, we noticed the menu listed wine, which at 400,000 Som or £25 was expensive by Uzbek standards, but not the London prices we were used to. However, on visiting the following night we realised the wine we had seen was either sweet or semi-sweet and the semi-dry Chardonnay was 600,000. So, we opted for a bottle of sparkling water to go with our more reasonably priced shared mains of a Cesar salad, and chicken and mushroom gnocchi. Everything was delicious, and we were served complimentary mini apples and apricots. As we sipped our flat whites, we were entertained by a table of four tourists who ordered a glass of white wine which barely covered the bottom of the large glass, and a bottle of red which didn’t last long as the staff, dressed in slightly bizarre khaki outfits which looked like PJs, attentively refilled glasses. This was a very modern, European style place, which I suspect is designed to cater to wealthy young Uzbeks judging by the range of flashy cars outside.
Two lunches provided more authentic experiences.
What is known locally as ‘Samsa Street’ had several outlets with big outdoor tandoor ovens baking Samsa (a little like an Indian Samosa). We sat on the outdoor terrace of Café 4 Taanur and were presented with a large tray showing bowls of the various salads offered, so we could see what we were ordering. We then waited for the delivery of the samsa which were deliciously hot and full of chopped, rather than minced beef with a light flaky pastry. We also ordered manti, or dumplings, which were a little similar to the Georgian Khinkali we’d enjoyed the previous year. With individual bowls of fresh tomato sauce, it was a tasty light lunch, again washed down with a pot of green tea without any of the previous nights’ ceremony.
Our second light lunch was at what looked like a small café from the outside, but Domashniy Restoran turned out to be a private house with a huge area at the back with both open air and covered seating. Once again, we were shown two trays. The first containing cold meat slices including horse sausages and so we declined, whilst from the salad tray we chose a Korean type of coleslaw in honour of the South Korean President’s visit to Samarkand the next day. Very thin lamb broth with small pieces of floating fat arrived unrequested, followed by huge plates of chickpeas with lamb which had been cooked for 20 hours, and the ubiquitous plov. There appeared to be lots of businessmen eating so it was a little odd that a musician was warbling away, although as they returned to their work, he stopped, which was a relief.
During our trip to Samarkand we visited a market where we loved a T-shirt featuring head shots of the Beatles accompanied by the words – ‘All you need is Plov’.
