Kyrgyz food

A collage of Kyrghyz food - most pictures by Ian McLellan. Who ever can name all 16 dishes correctly: please tell me because I sure as hell can't! :-)

When I first read about the food in Kyrghyzstan, it almost made me not coming here. And for those who now that I eat pretty much anything, that gives you a clue as to how bad I thought it was…

It all began when I went to Leningrad (currently under the more fashionable name St. Petersburg) in…oh I don’t know. 1988 or something? I can’t say I remember much of the trip itself, since it was just about the first time me and my then girlfriend spent ourselves. Needless to say, we didn’t see much of St. Petersburg, but almost 20 years later I still remember how bad the food was. That’s my impression on russian food.

So when I read in the guidebook that food in Kyrghyzstan is completely dismal, and the only chance to get some half-decent food is to go to Russian restaurants, I balked.

Well, I’m happy to say, that the situation is nowhere near as bad as I feared. As a matter of fact, I think that plov, manti, besh-barmak, laghman, shashlik, and the other dishes are quite good. But the variety…not very good, no. When I have been at the Habitat builds, we have been staying in people’s homes, which is very nice, but when you get the same three dishes (shashlik is to expensive and besh-barmak is onlyfor very festive occasions) served every day, with small variations, then you start to long for something new…

Laghman:Mutton stew with noodles and veggies like cabbage, carrots and onions.
Manti: a steamed dumpling filled with mutton meat.
Plov: Rice mixed with veggies and some mutton meat on top.
Shashlik: Grilled mutton, served with anything from french fries to rice.
Besh-Barmak: Meat from ritually killed sheep, served with noodles and a sauce made from mutton brain(!).
Pizza: what you are dying for after having had the above for three straight weeks!

P.S. I might be overdramatizing a little – in towns like Bishkek, Karakol and Osh, there will be lots of different kinds of food available, although not often cooked as we are used to in the west – DO stay away from the hamburgers...