Eating Kyrgyzstan: Traditional Kyrgyz food in Bishkek

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• published: 13 Oct 2016
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During one of our last days in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan we revisited one of our favorite restaurants in the city to eat traditional Kyrgyz food. Food in Kyrgyzstan is closely related to that of Kazakh cuisine and we ordered all of our favorites including Plov, Shashlik, Manti, Lagman & Kymyz. Traditional Kyrgzy food revolves heavily around horse meat, mutton and beef along with a heavy dose of dairy products influenced by its historically nomadic culture. Below you'll find more information about the specific dishes. Plov (плов) – Also known as pilaf or paloo, this is a mixed rice dish that features pieces of meat (usually mutton, beef, or chicken) and shredded carrots. It is cooked in a cast-iron cauldron and it is delicious. Shashlik (шашлы́к): shashlyk (meaning skewered meat) was originally made of lamb. Nowadays it is also made of pork or beef depending on local preferences and religious observances. The skewers are either threaded with meat only, or with alternating pieces of meat, fat, and vegetables, such as bell pepper, onion, mushroom and tomato. Manti (манты) – These are steamed dumplings filled with ground meat and onions. You can also get vegetarian ones filled with pumpkin or potatoes. Samsa (самсы) – This is a popular street snack. Picture a flaky pastry pocket stuffed with ingredients which include: chicken, cheese, cabbage, beef, or other fillings. Lagman (лагман) – Laghman is a noodle dish which can be served as a soup or fried, and it features chopped peppers with a spicy vinegar sauce. Ashlyam fu (Ашлям фу) – This is a cold and spicy soup that has meat, veggies, cold noodles and starchy noodles. Besh barmak (бешбармак) – The name of this dish translates to ‘five fingers’ because it is so tasty it is meant to be eaten with your whole hand. It is a plate of steamed noodles and onions with meat, which can be lamb or horse. Kymyz (кумыс) – Can I offer you a glass of fermented mare’s milk? It tastes nothing like what you’d imagine – it’s salty, fizzy and it kind of reminded me of Korean makgeolli – so give it a try. GEAR WE USE Olympus OM-D E-M5 II: http://amzn.to/1OchS7t Canon G7X: http://amzn.to/1YdjsYX Olympus 14-150mm II Lens: http://amzn.to/1Y79zeM Rode Video Mic GO: http://amzn.to/1WDKtVM Joby Gorilla Pod: http://amzn.to/1PgoY5F SanDisk 16GB Extreme Pro: http://amzn.to/25KEErs SOCIAL MEDIA & TRAVEL BLOGS AUDREY: blog: http://thatbackpacker.com/ instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatbackpacker/ facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thatbackpacker twitter: https://twitter.com/ThatBackpacker SAMUEL: blog: http://nomadicsamuel.com/ facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nomadicsamuel twitter: https://twitter.com/NomadicSamuel instragram: https://www.instagram.com/nomadicsamuel/ Eating Kyrgyzstan: Traditional Kyrgyz food in Bishkek Travel Video Transcript: So it is lunchtime here in Bishkek (Бишкек), Kyrgyzstan (Киргизия) and today we are going to be having a feast. We are going to be sampling all of the traditional dishes that we've been eating over the last three weeks because that is how long we've been traveling in the country. So we're ordering a big spread. This is probably enough food for like five or six people but Sam and I are going to try and eat it all and just showcase what Central Asian cuisine is all about. So we hope you enjoy. So we're almost done the meal. Any particular favorites? So stuffed. Um, the shashlik (шашлы́к) was amazing. That was so so good. It was so juicy and they don't really put a lot of spices on the beef but it just has like that natural flavor so that was really nice. It was smokey, tender flavor. Love that. It was good. And also the rice. I'm usually not a very big fan of rice but it was really good. It was like wild brown rice so that was really tasty. Yeah, those are two of my favorites as well. And I'm going to add that I really like the manti (манты). The pumpkin dumplings. Of course. Dumplings. So that wraps up our feast of feasts. It was an amazing like traditional Kyrgyz meal. We ordered so much food that we're actually taking a lot of it home. This is probably enough either for three or four people and in terms of the price it came to one thousand two hundred Som which right now is seventeen US dollars. So that was incredible value. I mean we got three different kinds of drinks, we got tea, we got a liter of Pepsi, we got a liter of mare's milk plus all of that food that we showed you including the bread, the dumplings, the meat, the rice, the noodles. So you can come here and have an epic feast and it is not going to cost you a fortune. This is part of our Travel in Kyrgyzstan video series showcasing Kyrgyz food, Kyrgyz culture and Kyrgyz cuisine. Music in this video courtesy of Audio Network