Uzbekistan is a foodie’s heaven!
Honestly speaking, we didn’t have great expectations for the food when we decided to travel to Uzbekistan. It’s a double-landlocked country and our bias (as Japanese, coming from a place that is blessed with great food from both the ocean and land) is that the foods from landlocked places are not great. But we took our low expectation as an opportunity to maintain our weight during the trip, which has never been possible in any of our past travels.
However, our bias was completely busted with our very first dinner in the country! And after that, we enjoyed every meal during the trip. Although I guess one page wouldn’t be enough to share all of the great foods, here are some of the top foods that you should aim to try during your travels!
Top 3 must-try local dishes of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan meets three must-conditions for perfect local cuisine: 1) high-quality vegetables and meat used as ingredients (I guess the soil quality is good here and they have sufficient sunshine), 2) a good variety of cooking methods that bring out the best of the great ingredients, and 3) a great variety of spices that enrich the taste and flavor. The top 3 must-try local dishes represent these three must-have conditions.
The first is plov (palov or pilaf). It’s a main course made with rice, sweet yellow carrots, onions, and pieces of meat. In some districts, raisins, berries or chickpeas are also added. The taste is really WOW and we ordered plov wherever it was available.
The second cuisine is manti. This is an Uzbek-style steamed dumpling, typically consisting of meat (usually lamb or beef) and spices wrapped in a sticky dough. As you bite into it, the meat juice comes out, which gave us another OMG moment. Some restaurants serve it topped with yogurt.
The third dish is shashlik. This is Uzbek BBQ food made with lamb, beef and chicken. A good chef will cook it thoroughly while also keeping it tender and crisp. I’m guessing that restaurants keep their own mix of spices a secret, which is what makes them the dish special.
It normally comes with sliced onions marinated in vinegar.
Try traditional dishes that you’ll only find in certain districts!
The Khorezm area is famous for its own traditional dishes. When visiting Khiva, you should aim to try at least the following two local dishes!
The dish below is Shuvit Oshi, home-made pasta infused with dill. The green pasta is served with gravy, potato, carrots, onions and meat. This was another of my favorites!
Another traditional dish unique to Khorezm is Tuhun Barak. Eaten by local people in the summer, it’s steamed egg-white dumpling.
Tashkent also has the traditional dish of Naryn (Norin). Comprising cold horse-meat with hand-made fresh noodles, the dish has a simple taste and is slightly oily. I guess they don’t use too much in the way of spice like in other Uzbek cuisine.
These are served with every meal and you’ll be addicted to some of them by the end.
Uzbek Nan is one of the main foods in the region. It’s always served whether you ask for it or not, even when you order plov. It’s like a huge bagel, round in shape and pressed down in the middle. The hardness and stickiness vary across regions. Samarkand Nan, which is very heavy, is very famous – popular and beautiful with glowing surface.
In fact, naan is at its best when fresh out of the oven. The best one we had was on the road; it was very crispy but fatty. When you have a long drive, keep an eye out for a local shop with a queue of people waiting for naan from the oven!
Dill is also served with almost every meal, again without having to ask for it. We (as Japanese) are not used to eat dill as a main salad, but we were hooked on this way of having it during our travels.
Achik-chuchuk is Uzbek mixed salad made with tomato, cucumber, onion, cottage cheese, and olives. Since the vegetables in Uzbekistan are so fresh, no additional seasoning is needed. It’s simply seasoned using only salt. Frankly, till then, I always thought Japanese cucumber and tomato are the best in the world, but these of Uzbekistan are super great too!
So much more cuisine to try!
Lagman is a home-made noodle dish that is widely cooked from Central Asia to Western China. The noodles are bouncy and substantial and in Uzbekistan they have both fried Lagman and Lagman soup.
Kazan Kabob is another classic dish. Lamb on the bones is cooked with potato, until the meat is tender.
While I must admit that we didn’t find the local wines too impressive, the cheeses are awesome.
Lastly, there is always a great and interesting local market behind the great local cuisine. Check out this post and plan to visit some local markets during your trip!