Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat plov before noon
Rice, carrot, onion and lamb cooked in layers in a cauldron so every grain stays separate. Fergana plov is loose and mixed; the Samarkand version is served in layers, unstirred.
Achichuk, a tomato and onion salad, comes alongside to cut the fat. Go to an oshxona in the morning: the cauldron empties by one, and evening plov is almost always reheated.
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Get samsa from the tandoor
A triangular pastry of chopped lamb, onion and tail fat slapped onto the wall of a tandoor and baked until the crust crisps. Inside it should be juicy rather than dry.
In a proper samsa the meat is knife-chopped rather than minced. The flaky varaqi samsa is a genre of its own and is baked larger.
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Try lagman
Hand-pulled noodles with meat and vegetables, served as a soup or stir-fried. The dough is stretched in the air, and watching it is worth the wait.
The soup version is simply lagman; the fried one is tsomyan or boso lagman. Vinegar and lazjan chilli oil sit on the table for you to add.
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Try shurpa
A clear lamb-on-the-bone broth with coarsely cut vegetables and herbs. The meat and vegetables are eaten separately and the broth is drunk from a bowl.
The vegetables are cut coarse on purpose so they keep their shape. Qaynatma shurpa is boiled; qovurma shurpa is fried first and comes out darker.
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Eat manti
Large steamed dumplings with chopped lamb, onion and a piece of tail fat. Eaten by hand and bitten carefully: hot juice collects inside.
Served with sour cream or qatiq and dusted with black pepper. Pumpkin manti are a common meat-free version and noticeably sweeter.
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Buy non bread
A round tandoor flatbread with a thin patterned centre and a thick rim. The Tashkent and Samarkand versions differ; the latter is denser and keeps for weeks.
Bread is torn by hand and never placed upside down, which is considered disrespectful. The pattern is stamped with a chekich, and each bakery has its own.
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Try shashlik
Lamb or beef on skewers over coals, alternating with pieces of tail fat. The minced version, lyulya, is shaped on a flat skewer.
Pickled onion with sumac and flatbread always come alongside. The tail fat on the skewer is not filler: it renders and bastes the meat.
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Try dimlama
Meat and vegetables layered in a cauldron and steamed in their own juices without added water. A home dish where each layer keeps its own flavour.
The layers are not stirred but turned out onto a platter in reverse order. The vegetables should be soft but not collapsed into a purée.
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Try norin
A cold dish of finely sliced boiled dough with horse meat kazy sausage and onion. A Tashkent classic served at celebrations and in the older chaikhanas.
The dough and meat are cut very thin and to the same size, which is the craft of the dish. A bowl of broth comes alongside and is drunk separately.
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Try achichuk salad
Thinly sliced tomatoes with red onion, black pepper and sometimes chilli, with no oil and no vinegar. The simplest of salads, existing to be eaten with plov.
The onion is soaked in cold water to take out the bitterness. There is no oil; the tomato juice is the dressing.
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Try halva Desserts and pastries
A dense sweet of seeds or nuts and sugar, cut from a large block at the market. Besides sesame there is sunflower, walnut and the flour-based holvaitar.
Markets let you taste before buying, which is normal and expected. Fresh halva crumbles and does not stick to your teeth.
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Buy dried fruit and nuts at the market Desserts and pastries
Apricots, several kinds of raisin, dried melon, whole apricots with the stone and walnuts — the reason to go to Chorsu. Everything is offered to taste, and haggling is normal.
Dark apricots dried without sulphur taste better than the bright orange ones. Dried melon is sold in braids and keeps for months.
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Try chak-chak and parvarda Desserts and pastries
Chak-chak is fried dough pieces bound with honey into a mound; parvarda is pulled caramel dusted with flour, white and brittle. Both go with tea.
Parvarda is made by hand, pulling the hot mass, and you can catch the process at the bazaar. Both suit unsweetened green tea best.
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Drink green tea in a chaikhana Non-alcoholic drinks
Unsweetened green tea from a pot and a bowl, drunk all day and especially in the heat. The bowl is filled only a third of the way, which is a mark of respect rather than meanness.
The first bowl is poured back into the pot three times, which is how the tea brews. Black tea is qora choy and is more of a winter drink.
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Drink qatiq or ayron Non-alcoholic drinks
Thick fermented qatiq and the diluted, salted ayron: what people here drink with fatty meat and against the heat. Sold loose at markets.
Qatiq is thicker and sharper than kefir and is eaten with a spoon or thinned with water. With manti and samsa it beats any other drink.
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Try Uzbek wine and brandy Local alcohol
Winemaking here is old and the grapes are local and dessert-leaning: the wines tend to be sweet and strong. The brandies of Tashkent and Samarkand are a surviving Soviet tradition.
Dry wines are outnumbered by sweet ones, so ask before buying. Alcohol is sold in shops, but a chaikhana or oshxona usually has none.
