Samarkand

I live in a neighborhood that is heavily populated with Bukharian Jews.  I don’t really know what that means, except that sometimes, when I walk home from the bus stop or train station at night, my senses are often assaulted with the amazing scent of grilled meats.  I die a little inside every time, knowing how scared I am to wander into the place closest to my apartment, because whenever I walk by, the newspaper-lined windows blocking my view, and attempt to glance into the sometimes-open doorway… it seems more like a big gathering of family and friends than a restaurant. 

Not so for Samarkand, which is a little further away – across the Boulevard of Death, as Queens Boulevard has been nicknamed – and I’ve been informed by one of my readers (hi Jeff!) that they are pretty open to “outsiders” venturing in.  One night recently, I found myself unable to say no to the smell of meat, and I walked right in.  Our waitress was kind and indulgent to our questions. 

The grilled meat section boasts prices that are fairly low.  (Yes, the fish skewer appears to be $10, but… it’s fish.  And I didn’t order that.)

Cutely, when I ordered the hummus, our waitress started to explain it to us, but I quickly interrupted: no, no, we know what it is, we definitely want it.

We blindly ordered the two sodas on the menu that weren’t familiar to us – one was tarrgaon, the other, guarana.  I didn’t like either of these very much.  But it was interesting trying something new…

Our waitress asked us what kind of bread we’d like to order with our hummus, and I resorted to her recommendation (there were two types on the menu).  She suggested we only order half, since it was quite large; this is half! 

Unfortunately, I don’t know what it was called, but this was really good, nice with the hummus – a crust on the outside, with pillowy, fluffy insides.  Perfect for swiping through the creamy hummus… yum!

A while back, when I’d mentioned wanting to hit one of these Bukharian places, I was informed that I must try the lagman.  I didn’t know what to expect, but here arrived a bowl of wonderful-smelling soup – I love soup – filled with vegetables, bits of meat, and…

hand pulled noodles.  zOMG.  Hand pulled noodles, and just across the Boulevard from me!!!  Of course, they’re not Chinese hand pulled noodles, but homemade noodles, I’ll take it.  And really good ones, I might add.  The soup itself was very tasty – tons of veggies, a good tomato based broth, but the noodles took it to another level.  I had to stop myself from hunting out every noodle and slurping them down; I was supposedly sharing, you understand. 

Next up was pelmeni soup.   

Much like dumplings in soup… a clean-tasting broth, filled with

little meat dumplings.  Tasty enough, but by no means wonderful.  We wondered about the fried pelmeni, and decided we would be back to try those – these were good, but we both thought it was a little soggy, so how would they be fried?  Mmm. 

But the main event!  Grilled meats!  We decided to try a whole variety. 

I love the ginormous sword-like skewers they used – and whisked away from us as soon as the last morsel of meat was removed from the stick.

Super juicy and drool-inducing just looking at them. 

Not really my choice, but chicken was first.  Juicy, but white meat, which I don’t tend towards.  Perfectly sufficient, but I wouldn’t order this on my own again.

Lamb ribs!  See the little bits of bone?  These were super delicious – fatty, juicy, tender and very, very tasy.  The only bad part is the bone – well, they’re ribs, duh! – but it was just the extra work involved with biting the meat off the bones (and yes, I used my hands).  Very tender and succulent though. 

Beef.  Again, just for getting something “normal” – and it was pretty tasty, again, juicy, not overcooked.  I’d totally order this again.

For the lazy, however, who don’t want to deal with the bones of the lamb ribs skewer, check it out: grilled lamb chunks, yummy, awesome.  Again, juicy – they know how to grill meat here, there’s no question, such that there’s a char on the outside, crunchy, that yield to a deliciously moist and flavorful inside.  I’m in love.  And it’s only a couple of blocks away… I predict this is not a good thing for my waistline.  At least it won’t kill my wallet!

Last but not least were the veal livers… Well, I thought my friend ordered this for personal consumption, but it turned out it was a bit of a challenge to me.  I don’t like liver much except foie gras, which doesn’t tend to have that metallic liver-y taste to it.  This was no exception – grilled properly, with a nice crust on the outside, which gave way to… liver taste!  Oh well.  Lessons learned, this is not to my liking. 

A week or so later, craving lagman, I returned with the same dining companion.  We started off with a pickled veggie plate, which… at $7ish for the above pickled items (sauerkraut-like cabbage, pickles, gren tomatoes, and purple cabbage), was really not worth it.  I was surprised, given how great the prices for the grilled meats are.  I mean, tasty, but not worth the $7.  I guess they are good to cut through the fat of all the meat you may order here…

As promised, we ordered the fried pelmeni this time, which were, in a word, awesome.  A sprinkle of salt finished the dish, or so it tasted; crunchy, but filled with meat, wow.  I commented that I would like a big bowl of these so I can sit on the couch, munching, while watching a movie, a la popcorn, but better.  Yes.  Yes I would.  These were that good.  That’s how I envisioned these, anyway.  NOM!!!   

My lagman this time appeared to be mounded up higher; perhaps they recognized us this time? 

Again, so, so, sooo good.  I told myself I was checking to see if it was a fluke how good it was last time, or maybe I’d inflated it in my mind since I’d last had it.  NOPE.  Lived up to expectations – look at that.  Glorious noodles, handmade and delicious, with tons of veggies and bits of meat in an excellent tomato-based broth again. 

My dining companion wanted to try the burek or meat pie, and I agreed.

Unfortunatly, this contained some spice that really puts off my tongue – it tastes metallic and does not appeal to me whatsoever, so I took two bites and had to give away the rest of my half.  However, my friend liked it quite a lot, so I imagine it’s good, just not to my tastes.  Unfortunate, to be sure.  (It isn’t cilantro, which some people liken to tasting metallic or soap-like, because I like cilantro now [didn’t used to], and because I don’t believe this region of the world employs much, if any, cilantro in their cooking.  I could be wrong about that, but either way, it isn’t that.)

And to finish up that section of the menu, we ordered what we’d missed last time – partially due to language barrier.

Grilled lamb chop, which comes under a non-English name on the menu, was juicy and perfect, wonderful.. just pick it up with your hand and nom away!  So good, juicy… but again, if you hate bones, stick with the regular lamb skewer.  More meat, too.  (I’m sure there are finer differences between the cuts of lamb available… but as a non-connoisseur of lamb, the choice comes down to how lazy I’m feeling.) 

Next up: sweetbreads!  I love sweetbreads – when done properly.  These weren’t bad – the char on the outside was nice – but I wasn’t impressed with the slight chalkiness to them.  I’d still get them every once in a while, but certainly without any regularity.  Nice to have a source so close to home, though. 

Last, the lula kebab, ground lamb formed into a log of sorts, then grilled.  I’ll pass on this one – not because it was bad, but because again, the regular lamb skewer is so good, who needs other kinds of lamb?!   

And then there’s the manti… interesting story about these.  When we ordered these – saying simply “and manti, please” – the waitress asked us how many we’d like.  We glanced at each other, and I said “Well, one is fine, we can split it” (not knowing how big or small) – but my friend said, “Well, how big is an order?” and she said “There’s 10 in an order.”  Obviously, we thought, well, okay, so, 10 it is… I haven’t had the experience where I can request less than a full order unless that’s on the menu (although I guess the bread up there, we did order and receive half, and were only charged for half).  She informed us these would take about 20 minutes to arrive, but they’re really good and worth the wait.  We had other food coming first, so there was no issue for us to wait.  I note here also that the menu listed the price at $2. 

When the above platter arrived, we were both shocked by how big they were.  I kind of expected them to be the size of the pelmeni – I mean, this is $2, afterall – and we discussed the idea that one could ostensibly order just this, pay $2 and have a full lunch on just that.  Look how big they are!  Look at that! 

Lots of juicy meat inside… but what’s this?  Ahhh!  Again, the same spice that was in the burek appeared here, which meant my tongue revolted and I didn’t want to eat these.  My poor dining companion had to eat the rest… and I mused aloud, “Maybe they’re $2 a piece?  That’s a bit ridiculous, I mean, they’re good – you like them, anyway – but $20 for this plate is a little… crazy.”  We both agreed that at $2 for the whole plate, deal of the century…

And then the bill came.  And it was $2 per manti!  So that plate WAS $20.  Communication error, I suppose?  I mean, they were good, but I think next time, we might stop at 2 or 3…  maybe 5?  I don’t hold it against the restaurant – we could have asked more questions and tried to clarify, and it wasn’t too outrageous, but this was definitely way more than either of us expected to spend on dinner that night. 

Yvo says: Be careful if you order the manti – know before you go that it’s $2/each.  I don’t know if they’ll let you order just one, but it is listed on the menu as $2, so I imagine they should let you order just one… Aside from that, yummy grilled meats for pretty inexpensive, really delicious lagman and those fried pelmeni are to die for snacky awesomeness.  Come on.  Maybe it’s not destination dining for you, but I’ll be making that trip across the Boulevard of Death more frequently now…
highly recommended