Dushanbe: Town of Eastern Delicious Food

In their Central Asia guide book, the LP lists “Restaurants” as one of the “Must-Sees”. I laughed at first – surely the shout out to the restaurant scene must be less of an homage to Dushanbe’s culinary credentials than a nod to the fact that there is not much to see in the capital. As to the latter, its kind of true – Dushanbe is basically comprised of one long street running north to south. However , LP was right – Dushanbe may very well be the culinary capital of the CIS.

Exhibit 1- Deli Darbar

The entrepreneurial logic behind Deli Darbar is a bit unconventional: open reasonably priced Indian restaurants in war torn regions. In addition to Dushanbe, the DD has branches in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif. Apparently civil strife is the perfect environment for the cultivation of a hopping ethnic food scene. We dined at the DD twice, and were impressed by the authenticity of each dish – even our New Zealand acquaintance of Indian descent gave it two samosas way up!

Exhibit 2 - Al Sham

Al Sham is no sham – it serves up great Lebanese food. I went there for dinner and had the hummus and falafel, which were among the best I’ve had outside of Lebanon.

Exhibit 3 – Salsa

While it might not live up to Pancho’s in Baku, Salsa, and Ecuadorian restaurant, satisfied out latin food cravings. Their signature dish is the llapingachos, fried potatoes and mozzarella cheese topped with peanut sauce. While the description made our stomachs turn, we ordered it any way, and did not regret it. The rest of the menu, a mix of Ecuadorian and Mexican dishes did not disappoint either.

Exhibit 4 – Kurtob
Finger lickin' good!

This is really the only distinctly Tajik dish we came across. Kurtob is a dish of layered bread, yogurt, onion and coriander in a creamy sauce. Sound disgusting? We thought so, but being the intrepid travelers that we are, we gave it a try, and found it to be pretty darn scrumptious.

Exhibit 5 – Le Grande Dame

We went here for brunch. I have some high brunch standards, so I was more than a little disappointed to find the only cocktail available was a pina colada and that their poached eggs were served with the yolks rock solid. However, kudos for LGD for even serving a brunch, which is more than I can say for any other city in the CIS.

All in all, we didn’t have one bad meal in Dushambe. While the city might otherwise be provincial, its restaurant scene, I dare say, is much more advanced than that of Moscow. So once again, bite it, Russia. If Tajikistan can outshine you in the culinary department, you gotta lot of work to do before that WTO bid comes in.