What to eat in Almaty

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• What else should the list cover? Desserts and pastriesNon-alcoholic drinks

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1. Eat beshbarmak

   Boiled lamb or horse with thin sheets of dough and onion in broth, served on a communal platter. The national dish, eaten by hand and shared.

   The sorpa broth comes separately in bowls and is drunk at the end rather than the start. The dough should be thin and soft rather than rubbery.

2. Try kazy horse sausage

   A sausage of horse rib meat and fat, boiled or air-dried. Sliced into thin rounds and served cold as a starter, or added to beshbarmak.

   The fat in kazy is white and soft, because horse fat melts at a low temperature. At the Green Bazaar you taste before buying.

3. Try kuyrdak

   Fried offal — liver, heart, kidney — with onion and potato in its own fat. The first dish made after a slaughter and the quickest in the cuisine.

   Served with flatbread and black pepper, without sauces. Fresh kuyrdak is tender; overcooked it turns tough and bitter.

4. Eat baursak

   Puffy pieces of fried dough, piled up on the table with tea and with meat. Eaten with butter, honey, kaymak cream or simply as bread.

   Hot ones are hollow and light inside; cold they go dense, so take them fresh. At a celebration they are on the table from the start rather than as a dessert.

5. Try laghman

   Hand-pulled noodles with meat and vegetables, as a soup or stir-fried. An Uyghur legacy, and the best laghman kitchens in Almaty are run by Uyghur and Dungan families.

   Guiru laghman comes with the sauce separate; tsomyan is the fried version. Vinegar and chilli oil on the table are added to taste.

6. Eat manty

   Large steamed dumplings with chopped meat, onion and either pumpkin or tail fat. Eaten by hand and bitten carefully; juice collects inside.

   Pumpkin manti are faintly sweet and meat-free, and they are common rather than exotic. Served with sour cream or a spicy tomato sauce.

7. Get samsa from the tandoor

   A triangular pastry of chopped meat and onion baked against the tandoor wall. Sold by bazaars and along highways, and taken hot from the oven.

   The meat is knife-chopped rather than minced, which gives the texture. Pumpkin samsa is seasonal, appears in autumn and is noticeably sweeter.

8. Try sorpa broth

   A strong meat broth with tail fat, drunk from a bowl separately from the dish. It is regarded as restorative and comes at the end of the meal.

   It is drunk straight from the bowl without a spoon, with black pepper to taste. The fat on the surface is not skimmed; that is the point.

9. Buy Korean salads at the bazaar

   Spiced carrot, raw fish hoe, fern shoots, soy stalk salads — whole rows of them at the Green Bazaar. A legacy of the Korean diaspora deported here in the 1930s.

   Tasting everything is standard rather than a favour. Buy a hundred or two hundred grams of several kinds by weight.

10. Try kurt

    Dried balls of salted curd, rock hard and very salty. A nomadic concentrate carried on the road, sucked slowly or dissolved in water.

    Start with a small piece; the salt level is high. There are milder and flavoured versions, and the bazaar will show you the difference.

11. Try chak-chak and shelpek Desserts and pastries

    Chak-chak is fried dough in honey; shelpek are thin fried flatbreads baked on days of remembrance. Both are on the table from the start.

    Shelpek is shared with neighbours on days of remembrance; it is ritual baking rather than dessert. Take chak-chak in small pieces; it is very sweet.

12. Buy dried fruit and nuts Desserts and pastries

    Dried apricots, raisins, whole apricots, walnuts and roasted seeds at the Green Bazaar. The Almaty aport apple, once famous, is rare now but findable.

    Dark unsulphured apricots taste better than the bright orange ones. Haggling at the bazaar is normal, especially by the kilo.

13. Try kumys Non-alcoholic drinks

    Mare's milk fermented until lightly fizzy and sour, with a trace of alcohol. Seasonal: fresh kumys runs from May to September.

    The first sip is unfamiliar: sour, faintly salty and slightly prickly. Start with a small bowl and take it cold rather than sun-warmed.

14. Try shubat Non-alcoholic drinks

    Camel milk fermented to a thick, sour drink, denser and richer than kumys. Drunk chilled, and the taste is closest to a very sour kefir.

    Thicker than kumys and easier for anyone who finds kumys too sharp. Sold in bottles at the bazaar; take it from the fridge.

15. Drink tea with milk Non-alcoholic drinks

    Strong black tea with milk, salt or butter, poured into part-filled bowls and topped up constantly. Drunk all day and especially in the heat.

    A full bowl hints that the guest should leave; a part-filled one means stay. Kaymak cream and baursak come with tea by default.