Kyrgyz Food in Bishkek:
A Foodie’s Guide
I have sort of a love/hate thing on with Kyrgyz food (and really Central Asian food), where I really enjoy a couple of dishes until I eat them too many times in a row; then I dread having them again for weeks or more.
Most of the readily available fare, to be just, are basic meatandstarch dishes with a handful of oily vegetables thrown in. Once you find ‘your place’ that does them well, though, it makes going back for more a much happier idea. My ‘boso lagman’ joint (the Cafe Gyrman at 124 Kiev) makes a pretty exceptional plate of meaty fried noodles, and my friend Alex showed me perhaps the greatest shashlyk joint in all the land (Lineynaya just west of Sultan Ibraimov).
The plov, though? That’s the real special Kyrgyz food. I may not be quite ‘national dish’ status here to the same degree as in Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, but it is still definitely a thing. Best bet? Find a buddy from Osh to cook up a batch for you. Rice and mutton and carrots and spice and everything nice… a plate of truly good plov is a good moment in time.
Barring that, though, tourist favorite Chaikana Jalalabad (54a Toglok Moldo) also serves up a mean southern-style bowl of plov. It isn’t quite the home-cooked masterpiece I remember having in Bukhara several years ago, but it IS the tastiest commercial version I know of in town.
Now, if only somebody could point me towards a really good plate of besh-barmak in Bishkek. Anybody?
I would love the noodle dish with the vegetables, just leave the meat off. Looks good. Learn how to cook this so you can cook it for me when I get Ole
Love N
I don’t know, it can get pretty oily. Remind me next time I’m there, though, and I’ll try to make some!
Yeah, I guess I would agree with you that the food in Central Asia does get kind of repetitive. I did enjoy it for two years…but I probably ate plov once a day in Uzbekistan.
Ha.. weren’t you telling me a while back you got burned out on Central Asia towards the end of your time there? Perhaps this is why!
I’ve been doing good in Bishkek, but there are also enough different options here to keep it interesting. My first time in Uzbekistan, though, I feel like I had plov or manti just about every meal.