What we love about New York City is that you can find food from anywhere in the world here, even delicacies from Central Asia. Luckily for us, New York has a swelling community of Central Asians who have begun to migrate here after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain, and have opened many Central Asian restaurants where you can catch up on all the food that you have been homesick for.
Dishes of the region include the juicy marinated grilled meat of shashlyk, the julienned Korean-style salad morkovcha, the tandoor-baked lepeshki, hand-pulled lagman noodles, and many other homemade delicacies. Prior to the establishment of borders between the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in the 1920-1930s, this region was a much more fluid network of connections and routes, the outcome of which is that Central Asian cuisine consists of dishes that one will find in a range of countries.
For example, you can find that each region has their version of the rice dish of plov, and everyone claims that their plov is the best. In Osh, Kyrgyzstan, they make plov with red rice (grown on red clay soil) and yellow carrots. In Uzbekistan, every city has their own plov. Here’s a look at some of our favorite Central Asian restaurants where you’ll find some of the best mixing and melding of the regions cuisine.
5. KashKar Cafe
Our first and favorite thing to eat in a Central Asian restaurant is a dish called laghman. Although some regard laghman as an Uighur or Dunghan dish, these hand-stretched noodles served with the sauce made of vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic) meat and broth, are one of the staple dishes of any restaurant in Central Asia and New York. There are variations of laghman without broth (guiru laghman) or fried. All are absolutely delicious.
Our favorite place to get laghman is KashKar Cafe, a Brighton Beach homestyle BYOB restaurant. The restaurant gets its name from the city of Kashgar, a historic trading outpost west of the Pamir Mountains at the foot of the vast Taklamakan Desert. This Kashgar outpost finds itself in New York, where it places a heavy emphasis on grilling meats (particularly lamb), among serving other Uzebk favorites.
KashKar Cafe (1141 Brighton Beach Ave, between Brighton 14th St & Brighton 15th St, Brooklyn).
4. Nargis Cafe
Opened in 2007, Nargis Cafe delivers an authentic taste and feel of Central Asian cuisine and culture. While they serve a variety of items, they are best known for their manti, dumplings often served with sour cream or soy sauce and vinegar. Other offerings include a Bojon salad, plov, samsa, a large Uzbek dumpling cooked in tandoor ovens that are almost always filled meat and diced onions, and shurpa.
Nargis Cafe (2818 Coney Island Ave, Brooklyn).
3. У Тещи (At Your Mother-in-Law’s)
Salads in Central Asian restaurants are a mixture of Central Asian and traditional Russian salads but there is a third influence. Korean immigrants exiled by Stalin during WWII to Central Asia created the carrot salad. Another common salad that you can order is Korean Kim-Chee, the spicy pickled cabbage that is more commonly called Chim-Chee in Central Asia. У Тещи (At Your Mother-in-Law’s), also known as Elza Fancy Food is THE place to get these salads.
У Тещи (At Your Mother-in-Law’s) (3071 Brighton 4th Street, Brooklyn).
2. Cafe Dushanbe
This Tajik gem, formerly known as Cafe Rokhat, serves up some of the best food outside of Tajikistan. Qurutob, a national dish of the country, comes served in a hubcap-size wooden bow with a Matterhorn-shaped mound of braised lamb, sweet peppers, and herbs, all settles atop some fatir, a type of flatbread. All the Tajik essentials are offered here, including sautéed shiitake, oyster, and button mushrooms for a side dish and a beef bourguignon inspired by French cooking.
Cafe Dushanbe (1788 Sheepshead Bay Rd, Brooklyn, NY 11235)
1. Cheburechnaya
For a change of pace, head to Rego Park, Queens to Cheburechnaya. This restaurant offers not only the regular Bukharian fare, but also serves it kosher. The food samples dishes from across the Central Asian region much like the other places on this list, including Ukrainian comforts such as borscht and stuffed cabbage and Middle Eastern familiars, like hummus and baklava. It’s worth the venture out into this outer borough area for the delicious Uzbek dining. We recommend house special, chebureki, empanada-like fried tarts stuffed with fennel-sparked cabbage or rich, gamy mutton.
Be sure to BYOB because as per Uzbek custom, no wine is served here, though the restaurant can open kosher wines for a per-bottle charge. In New York, many of these restaurants are bring your own alcohol (BYOB) establishments. The safe thing to do when going to these restaurants is to just ask before popping a beer open. Green Tea is common and so is black tea, which is usually served piping hot in small Central Asian tea cups.
Cheburechnaya (92-09 63rd Dr., Queens, NY 11374)
In a cosmopolitan city like New York City you can virtually visit a region of the world by finding a restaurant that serves food and recreates the atmosphere of a far off place. Fortunately we have so many wonderful communities trying to make their first stake here. Many of those new immigrants are here serving the food of their homeland to make that transition easier for those groups who are hungry and ready to spend their hard earned first dollars on a good meal that reminds them of home. Go out and take advantage of this to learn a little about a new region in your very own city, one dish at a time.
Next, check out NYC’s Ethnic Markets: Where to Get Asian Groceries and NYC’s Micro Neighborhoods: Little Uzbekistan in Ditmas Park and Midwood.