We stayed in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe for two nights at the Taj Palace Hotel and as it had a central location, we took advantage of eating out.
Across from the hotel, and tucked down a small side street, an outdoor terrace of Café Central was ideal for a late, light lunch. When the waiter realised we spoke English, a colleague was despatched to serve us. A beer, raspberry lemonade mojito and hummus accompanied by toasted thin bread was ideal, and cost 120 Samoni or just under £9. As it was such a good experience, we returned the following day, choosing to sit inside what was a large and modern interior. We repeated the drinks order and chose focaccia with Sulguni (Georgian cheese) and a Greek salad with Serbian cheese, in a nod to previous holidays. Although they appeared to take credit cards, we had two rejected.
We spotted the Georgian restaurant, Tiflis on Google maps and as we’d loved the country’s cuisine the previous year, thought it was a must. The basement restaurant had a model of a man eating kebabs and Khinkali (dumplings) outside the rather imposing closed door. Having heard a ‘bing bong’ as we walked down the stairs, we waited for a few minutes, before realising the door was unlocked. It was a small place with just three tables down the centre, and six individual rooms sectioned off by a curtain (possibly to give privacy to Muslim diners who wanted to drink alcohol). Having confirmed there was an English menu, we asked about white wine, which Georgians are famous for. The waiter only had limited English, but they appeared only to have red wine: we later saw red being poured from large plastic containers into pottery jugs, so suspect this was all they had, which didn’t feel very Georgian. Having ordered beer, we were served bottles of a dark Guinness-like Russian Velkopopovicky Kozel Cerny which tasted better than it looked. For our second round, one bottle was the same, but the other, although the same brand, was a lighter colour. Fortunately the food was a little more authentic with a Georgian salad (tomato, cucumber, onion, herbs and a red wine dressing) along with an Adjaruli khachapuri (a boat-shaped bread full of melted cheese). This took a while to arrive, but the wait was well worth it. We tried to pay by credit card, which once again didn’t work, possibly because we were underground, and the signal was bad, and so we had to stump up cash.
The next night was not so straightforward. Our guide had told us that the Turkish restaurant Sultan Bey didn’t serve alcohol, but said we could take beers in. However, on arrival at what was a large restaurant, they were very dismissive, and the menu wasn’t in English, although there were pictures.
The next option was the Chinese restaurant Hua. Again the menu wasn’t in English although a helpful young waiter overheard our problem, scanned the QR code on his phone and found the menu. However, (a) it was quite difficult to read it and (b) the food was quite expensive, so we left.
By now we were losing the will to live, so hit the supermarket shelves and stocked up on snacks and drinks and had a night in as we had a lovely bay window in our room. It was not quite how we envisaged spending our last night in the capital, but at least it was cosy and cheap, and there were no language problems.
