...China (Decoding Chinese Menus. Or Not)

Oh China! I could gorge myself on your endless gastronomic delights (as it happens I'm doing a pretty good job of it but you will have to wait until I can upload photos to find out what exactly). But the fun starts before the dishes have even hit the lazy-susan*. The Chinese menus are a feast for the eyes in themselves.

In one restaurant, we opened the menu to find delicacies such as 'Steams the Hairy Crab', 'The Peasant Family Slowly Fries the Meat' and 'Does the Pot Spicy Pig Face' (the lack of question mark is excruciating, I can't bear it). And how does one choose between 'The Sheet Iron Squid Must' and 'Pickled Cabbage Old Duck Chafing Dish'? Sheet iron squid vs old duck! What to do?!

The favourite so far however, has to be 'Explodes Fries the Donkey Board Intestines'. At a hefty £5 a plate and a reluctance (on my part) to eat such a sorrowful looking animal (if indeed that is what is in it), we'll have to rely on our imaginations to work out what-in-god's-name is in that dish. I personally can't get the image of a donkey eating chips on a surfboard out of my head.  Suggestions on a postcard. 

And sometimes it starts before you even get the menu! How could you possibly walk past 'Wang Strotters Bubble Up' restaurant without going in? How?!**  

But I fear that further investigation into these wonderful yet 'misinformed' translations would just result in disappointment. For example, on ordering 'Spicy Grandma' if I receive anything less than a firey old Chinese lady, I will want my money back.


* A turntable in the centre of the table where dishes of food are placed so that they can easily be reached by everyone around the unnecessarily large tables.

** Unfortunately it was shut, so again we shall have to use our imaginations. 

...Kyrgyzstan (Horses for Courses)

Our regal living room in our homestay

Due to a short visa and the Chinese/Kyrgyz border about to shut for 10 days, we sadly had to race through Kyrgyzstan. A real shame because from what we saw, it looked to be a really spectacular place with incredible scenery. It also means we only sampled a little of Kyrgyz cuisine. But fear not, I have two experiences to relate to you. 

First ever sighting of Finn on a horse. This has not been photoshopped. The horse really was that small.

I last sat on a horse when I was ten years old. I remember it distinctly because I couldn't feel my feet and felt rather humiliated sat on this beast. I swore there and then I would never get on a horse again. Twenty-one years later, I find myself atop a horse and three hours into a day's trek. And I've had enough. I'm mentally commending my ten year old self on her wisdom and maturity and deriding my thirty-one year old self for ignoring this wisdom. Finally we stop for lunch and our cook threads chunks of marinated beef onto stripped twigs to cook over hot coals.  The shaslyk tastes amazing. The marinade is made from chilli flakes, cumin and coriander seeds, salt and garlic.

Big happy face

Best enjoyed next to a waterfall. On leaving a restaurant the next day, I noticed it had a sign outside with photos of meat dishes and a big horse's face next to them. I don't know what meat I had eaten there but let's just say revenge is best served on a skewer. With onions.

Racing to catch the border before it closed, we broke up our journey in Saray-Tash, a snowy village where goats outnumber people. It is an important stop as there is a fork in the road where in one direction you can go to Tajikistan and in the other, China. We searched for somewhere to eat and eventually happened upon an old lady and a shop. She beckoned us into her kitchen and removed a lid to reveal a bubbling pot of mutton and potato stew. "Soupy soupy lovely soupy" she cackled while churning lumps of gristle with a ladle. We noticed another pot. "What's in there?" we asked, using the international language of pointing. She reluctantly removed a lid to show huge pieces of chicken swimming in a thick gravy.
 
No need to tell you which we chose. We devoured the stew with bread and endless cups of tea and left just us the Tajik lorry drivers were breaking up their journeys. We declined their offers of beer in case it might effect our ability to choose the correct fork to hitch from the next day and, heaven forbid, end up in the wrong country.

...Uzbekistan (Post Script: Rancid Cheese Balls)

I thought I'd covered all the delights of Uzbek food but I forgot sumza! How could I forget these vile little spheres of rancidness? HOW?!

They keep popping up because Uzbek's seem to love them. We first tried them when we were on our way into the mountains outside Tashkent to ride a rickety chairlift. A row of gold toothed women sold them by the side of the road. Maruf, my old student made us try them. The texture was like dried poly filler and the taste like rancid yoghurt. Which is clever for that is what sumza is. Balls of out-of-date, dried yoghurt. We heard of people receiving them as change in shops. A cruel thing to do! 

Today however, there really was no escaping them. Not for me anyway.  We shared a taxi to the Kyrgyz border with some Uzbek women who dolled out the dreaded snack with delight. Finn, enjoying his lashings of space in the front, ate half of his and hid the rest in his bag (which I have now fished out and disposed of, before it became forgotten). I however, was very much wedged in the back seat with said ladies and therefore had to eat the whole thing as they watched. I tried to imagine the rancid taste was a strong vinegar. It was no good. It took me about five minutes to eat the marble sized piece of nastiness. That's five minutes of my life that I will never get back...

...Uzbekistan (Scraping the Barrel)

Having fun the the 'City of the Dead' in Samarkand

"You don't go to Central Asia for the food". Or so our guidebook tells us. If I tell you what our diet has consisted of in the last few weeks here, you can decide if you agree or not.

Plov

This month we have mostly been eating plov. Ah plov. The 'national dish' of Uzbekistan. Finn suggested the name derives from the sound it makes when it hits the plate. A pile of greasy rice, vegetables and meat with the odd bit of fat thrown in if you are lucky. On receiving a plate of the stuff, a fellow Brit announced 'that's not a national dish, that's a mess'. Five heads  nodded in agreement. Men eat it on a Thursday because it boosts their libido (don't know why a Thursday). If any man came near me smelling of mutton and grease, I'd be off like a shot (interestingly, it also plays an important role in Uzbek weddings). Though judging by the fact most children are conceived on a Thursday here, Uzbek ladies clearly feel otherwise.

But I am being harsh. In Tashkent we were taken on a tour of family and friends by my ex student Maruf and his wife. Dropping in on his in-law's, his mother-in-law decided to make plov for everyone (an example of the lengths of Uzbek hospitality). We have eaten plov in Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand with views of some of the most beautiful Islamic architecture in the world.  But eating it in the sun with our new friends, it tasted better than any plov I've had before... And I feel it no longer necessary for me to make a pilgrimage to the Central Asian Plov Centre.


Breakfast
Dear god, how can I begin to tell you about breakfasts in this country? The difficulty lies in the fact that no one breakfast is the same. Contenders for 'bizarrest breakfast item' include: chips (with egg and sausage), boiled sweets, rice pudding, swiss roll, a bowl of double cream. Not all together. But we're not out the country yet...


Mutton and flour based dishes


Laghman (noodle soup) with mutton and vegetables, samsa (pasties) with mutton and onion in, manty (dumplings) also with mutton and onion in. Mutton, flour, flour, mutton. 

A camera shy samsa seller. For the record, they were filled with caramalised onion.

Stopping for Samsa at a roadside cafe on a very bad road to Bukhara. Went out to find our driver hitting the car with a hammer. Didn't ask.

 

Shickers
Having a serious chocolate craving on our way back to the hotel one night we found a dimly lit stall selling Snickers bars. On asking the price, we were shocked to find it was no cheaper than Britain. Then we noticed they sold 'Shickers' bars. At half the price of a Snickers bar and the same packaging, how could we resist? If I'd known it would be the equivalent to eating a bar of butter then 'quite easily'. And quite frankly it was a waste of time eating it. But unlike that other waste-of-time-food celery, I wasn't burning off anything as I ate it.

Don't have a picture of a 'shickers' so here's some nice bread instead.

So onwards to our final 'stan. In a restaurant in Tashkent, our little faces lit up when we saw pots of chilli sauce and Chinese vinegar to put on our laghman. Flavour! It is a sign we are moving closer to China and its assualt-on-the-senses cuisine. 

I don't want to influence your decision about Uzbek food but I'll sign off by saying that tonight we will be dining at that laghman restaurant for the third time in a week.  And that I'm slowly working my way through all the different varieties of 'meat' flavoured crisps. Living the dream...

...Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was not on my list of potential, culinary highlights. Actually, it wasn't even on my radar. I didn't know anything about it and yet on just a 3 day transit visa (all we could get), we sampled some fine food and this strange, closed country worked its way into our hearts. The fact we could drink alcohol again also helped.

So less than 3 days to get an idea of Turkmenistan's cuisine. Conveniently, our first stop was outside our hotel. A barbecue, a bar and some patio chairs on the pavement meant tasty shaslyk, steins of beer and the opportunity to people watch. And with my hair flowing free in the warm evening, it all felt very far from Iran. The shaslyk was lumps of mutton marinated in spices. The meat was tender and tasty (not words I would usually use to describe mutton) and was complimented by a salad of onion, parsley and dill.

High on our freedom (well, compared to Iran!), Berk beer and tasty food, we headed into the centre of Ashgabat where we gazed at white marble palaces, multicoloured fountains and futuristic looking bus stops. Magnificently hideous or hideously magnificent? I couldn't decide. Either way, I went to sleep having fallen in love with Ashgabat and woke with two things on my mind. A) Did I dream it all? B) What do Turkmen eat for breakfast?

I soon realised A) No I hadn't dreamt it all and B) Not what you'd normally eat for breakfast. We sat down on more rickety, plastic furniture in an overly-decorated restaurant hall and sullen soviet throwbacks served us fried pasta and mince with a fried egg. Breakfast.

A Turkmen breakfast

We left Ashgabat soon after our 'greasy fry-up' and headed far north, through the desert to an old Silk Road town on the Uzbek border. We found a hotel and a room which looked more like a room in a karaoke bar than a bedroom. We were brought bowls of chorba, a greasy broth with a massive lump of beef (gristle and all), dill and half a potato in and a huge pot of lemon and green tea, drunk from bowls. Russia's influence on the food, with the use of dill in particular, was a surprise to me. Yet drinking tea from small, china bowls  felt so 'eastern'.

Eating 'soup' in our karaoke bedroom

We spent the late afternoon wandering around spectacular mausoleums, mosques and minarets.   On our way back to the hotel we walked past some women busy with their tandir (outdoor oven). We 'salamed' them, hoping we might get a peak in the oven and sure enough, were beckoned over. Inside the tandir were samsa, small pasties of herbs with spinach, potato or cheese. We were invited in for tea and soon enough the table was covered in the fresh samsa, biscuits, bread, jam and sweets. Green tea was poured and we were given camel's milk warmed with tea.

Afternoon tea - Turkmen style

We probably outstayed our welcome but we were so happy to be in an environment where women dominated the conversation. Before leaving the table, the father performed the Amin. This is like giving thanks for the food and symbolises the end of a meal. Probably for the best as I was being force fed by the mother unlike Finn, who was enjoying taking a backseat after a month in patriarchal Iran!

Our last night in Turkmenistan involved being forced into slow dancing at a Turkmen wedding and drinking shots of port.  Job done.

...Iran (Part 4 - Escaping Tehran)

“That's it. I refuse to try and do anything else in this city. I'm sick of setting off to find an internet cafe/embassy/restaurant only to find it closed and holding onto this hejab in the wind is driving me mad. And yes Finn, I have thrown the guidebook onto the pavement. But I've been driven to it! I'm not ashamed. I've had enough.

Cafe Naderi

Take me to Cafe Naderi with its silver-haired waiters, grass green walls and bright red curtains and young, flirting Tehranis reading each others' futures in the coffee grounds.  An oasis of calm and relative normality in a frustrating city. Ah yes waiter, it is us again. Please bring me your finest cold coffee - a tall glass of vanilla ice cream drenched in milky coffee. And all is well again and I think I might be starting to love this city again. But wait, why is that exceptionally chubby boy staring at us? How rude! Is he still staring? Yes! Let’s move tables. That’s better. No, he’s still staring. Why don’t the parents do anything?! It’s really creepy. Oh wait, here comes the dad…”Excuse me mister” (long pause, sigh) “My son really likes you”. Oh! He hasn’t been staring at us, he’s been gazing adoringly at Finn! This is brilliant! “Could he have a photo with you?” By now, exceptionally chubby boy has downed a cold coffee, inhaled a piece of swiss roll and donned a middle-aged lady’s floppy hat in readiness for the photo. Wonderful.

Thank you Tehran (but really, it’s time to go now)”. 

...Iran (Part 3 - Home Cooked Food to the Rescue)

Iranian food has been disappointing. There. I've said it. I know what you're thinking, that we were spoilt in Turkey. Yes we were but there are other travelling souls who share in our disappointment and who have not had the pleasure of experiencing Turkish cuisine. 

The food issue here has been bothering us. REALLY bothering us (we have the time for such matters to niggle after all). Endless conversations have ensued between backpackers (never with Iranians - they would be mortified to know we felt like this, one guy was deeply offended when Finn mentioned it was difficult to find a restaurant so you can see what we're dealing with here) to try to get to the bottom of it. And here it is...

Everything in this country is so tightly controlled and amazingly this has an effect on what and where you eat! Iranians do not relax in public because quite frankly, they can't. There are always 'people' watching. This explains the absence of outdoor cafes, lack of street food and poor variety (and often quality) of food in restaurants (when you are lucky enough to find one that is). The good stuff, the 'real' eating experience we have come to realise is where Iranians can really relax and be themselves. At home. The few travellers we've met here have all had one goal: to be invited to an Iranian home for dinner. We had the opportunity to eat great home cooked food when we recently spent a week in the desert.
 

Garmeh - an oasis village

In an oasis village, we stayed in a guesthouse with a baby camel outside (a digression: watching it eat is one of the funniest things I've seen - its mouth would start to move before it ate as if it were imagining eating, when not doing this it would form its lips into an 'o' shape making it look constantly excited as it hopped about, waiting for its dinner. End of digression. Thank you).

A baby camel! I will never eat another camel burger

Although it was a guesthouse, Payam, our shy chef cooked some lovely food that we would be hard pressed to find in a restaurant. Highlights were tahdig meaning 'bottom of the pan'. This is basically the crunchy bits of rice from the 'bottom of the pan', sometimes with vegetables added. We had potato tahdig which was damn good! The other unbelievably lovely foodstuff was pickled aubergines. Pickled. Aubergines. If ever there were two words made for each other it is these. Boiled, skinned, stuffed with mint and garlic and then left to soak up all that lovely vinegar for three months, these are one of the nicest things I've eaten. Three months before we return, I will remind you of this so you can get busy and make me happy on my return!

A plate of tahdig

After being fed, we watched our chef play beautiful tunes on ceramic pots

At another village called Toudeshk, we stayed at the home of Mohammad. One of the few home stays in Iran, Mohammad gives people the opportunity to experience Iranian home life, desert living and home cooked food. We overindulged on his sister-in-law's amazing cooking. On our last night we were treated to a 'traditional' dish of dates and egg. If ever there were two words that shouldn't go together it is surely these two. Or so I thought. The dates were boiled in a little water to soften them up and then cooked with whisked eggs resulting in a caramel mush. It was served as a main dish but all I could think about as I worked through seconds and thirds was how amazing it would be with a blob of vanilla ice cream.
 

Eating with the family

That same evening, we 'let' the kids beat us at snap while Mohammad and his sister-in-law hacked away at what can only be described as a phallus (sorry) of sugar. Why? They were making sugar lumps so they could dip them in tea, Iranian style. Why didn't they just buy sugar lumps? I have no idea. But what else are you going to do on a Saturday night when alcohol is banned? Although, as we have had the pleasure to experience, home brewing is alive and well in this country. And there's a rumour you can buy bacon on the black market...