Street Snax in Tashkent

Along a pedestrian path, a man sells cups of "salqin ichimlik" dispensed out of a large yellow tank hooked up to a cooling unit. Roughly translated as cool-drink, it looks like tinted sugar water and tastes vaguely like a cross between Gatorade and Kool-aide. A small cup costs about 10 cents, a large is 20, and 50 cents for a liter. The cool drink's competitor sells kbac (pronounced kvass) and she charges about a third more. Around this region, kbac is far more popular than cool-drink. It's a traditional fermented Slavic/Baltic beverage commonly made from rye bread. Kbac tastes a bit sour, a bit sweet, and a bit nutty. And, it is overwhelmingly refreshing. In my opinion, it should be served very cold and consumed quickly because flat, warm kbac tastes like sadness. 

Either drink pairs well with fall days and street snacks so long as it is chilled. Interestingly, I found that most restaurants ask customers twice if they want iced drinks over concern for illness - ice is not really a thing here, but cold drinks? Yes. 

For a starch fix, buy a cup-o-corn or cobbed corn seasoned with liquid margarine and served in a plastic bag. The corn doesn't have the esteem of Iowa sweet corn, but it does has an impressive, strong flavor. Savory, Central Asian pastries called somsas might be filled with meat or chicken, pumpkin, or potato and are well worth the price of 25 cents. They are best eaten immediately out of the oven to minimize soggy pastry dough and heartburn from the onions and garlic - which blessedly are staple ingredients here. 

It goes without saying that meat kebabs (shashleek) is always a good decision, as is plov, Uzbekistan's amazing meat and rice dish. Both can be found for about 1 dollar. But it's the fresh lepeshka that makes my eyes roll to the back of my head and sigh with contentment. Most of the road side signs and store fronts advertise it as "non" but it has many names: lepeshka, patir, naan. It's a simple round bread loaf made of high gluten flour, milk/yogurt, yeast, salt, and sugar and is cooked in a tandoor. A whole loaf easily feeds 2-4 people but I will happily eat one by myself. They are cheap too, about 20-25 cents each, so I knew I was getting ripped off by the stone-cold, masked grandmother charged me 50 cents. But no matter. All is right in the world when you get tear (don't ever cut it) into warm lepeshka. Better than that - getting to experience snax with someone you adore. 

Cool drink tankard

Non/Naan/Lepeshka/Patir

Somsa