Bishkek: A foodie’s paradise

Since leaving the food and drink capital of the world that is Salasvegas, I haven’t been compelled to write anything on the tasty morsels you may be able to garner in a second-rate city that doesn’t have the best cathedral in the world. Until now. 

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With our raw nether regions still healing from the horse riding, we made our way north through the incredible green scenery, dotted with local people’s yurts which they bring up to the mountains in summer. After a few nice but uneventful nights in Osh (where we said goodbyes to Drazen), and a quick jaunt to the world’s largest walnut forest at Arslanbob, we made yet another desperately long but beautiful journey to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. 

We didn’t know where we were staying or what to expect in Bishkek, but over the course of two visits, three hostels and an awful lot of food and drink related excursions, we got to know this city very well. 

Food

Chicken Star

As I’m writing this I’m already tearing up at the thought that I won’t be able to eat Chicken Star until I manage to steal/earn enough money to make the long trip back to Kyrgyzstan. Chicken Star was a relaxed restaurant selling Korean food but most importantly Korean fried chicken. It was a little pricey but God help anyone that stands in my way as I charge through the leafy park of central Bishkek, knocking elderly people, children and pregnant women out of the way to spend all available funds in this poultry paradise. The chicken came in different flavours, but the best way to go about your chicken star business is to choose a spice level, choose if you want a whole chicken or half, then wait. The chicken will come with tongs and a fork so just tear into that sticky, spicy and unimaginably crunchy outer layer to get to the meat. If I write about the meat in too much detail I think I might have to change the age rating of this website, but I think you catch my drift. Once you try a Chicken Star you will look at a KFC and laugh in pity, turning the colonel over in his grave. As well as chicken, they did the best onion rings I’ve had in my life (just imagine perfection and you’re half way there) and other Korean dishes which I didn’t try but they looked like an excuse to return and finish off the menu. If you have taken the hit and bought your tickets to Kyrgyzstan already then that’s brilliant! You can also look forward to amazing live music on Saturdays and open mic night on Fridays. However, don’t leave to start packing just yet, stay tuned for more delicious Bishkek offerings for when your “friends” stage a Chicken Star intervention. It’s not an addiction unless you go there for every meal of every day and I wouldn’t even consider a Chicken Star on a Monday morning. I’ll never forgive them.

Torro Burger

We spotted this humble food truck on our first day in Bishkek but neglected to eat from it, thinking that we were too good to eat from an establishment that doesn’t offer you a table. Instead, we went to Burger House, which did serve a tasty burger on a perfectly serviceable table. However, upon a deep reflection of the forces that drive the universe and reevaluation of our most basic human desires, culminating in an almost primal reach for self-actualisation (otherwise known as a hangover), we decided we needed another burger. This time a meagre paper wrapping was just perfect for us. This burger was ultimately the undisputed best burger of my life. It wasn’t trying too hard, with fancy bread or too many toppings, instead it was a gloriously juicy meat sandwich with every facet of it complementing the other. The meat, as it should be, was the eye of the storm. The medium thickness burger had a caramelised, charred outside while still drooling crimson stained meat juices from the inside. It was the powerful yet self-effacing umami centre from which to tether all the rest of the flavours. The tomato was juicy and sweet adding to the succulent softness of the burger, while the crunchy sourness of the pickles and the spice of the peppers cut through the sweetness and added some crunch. Finally, within the lightly toasted soft white roll, there was a healthy helping of sweet American mustard and a little tangy tomato sauce which rounded off the textures and tastes on show. This swirling tempest of flavours and textures, which you could find with every bite, caused a beautiful chaos that I had to experience more than once.

Drink

Save the Ales

By an extremely happy, kind of not coincidence, our third hostel ended up being right across the road from this renowned craft beer bar. Now, it would’ve been a crying shame if we didn’t try a few of what they had to offer, purely as an in-depth investigation into local culture of course. The first time we went there it was closed and we ended up at the Thai restaurant (Baan Baan Thai Cafe) next door which introduced us to the fact that Thai food in Kyrgyzstan could be very tasty but also, possibly more importantly, Red Sun Velvet had become my new favourite lager. We may or may not have gone back to the restaurant just as an excuse to get some more of that beer. Anyway, getting back on track, Save the Ales was a small craft brewery and was the first of its kind in Bishkek. It had a good selection of different types of beer and some snacks to accompany them. Most important among the drinks selection for Jeroen was the IPA which, when we saw it, drove him a little insane with excitement after months without his much beloved drink. In the basement of the small building was a really nice pool room where Jereon, Brendan and I spent a few hours showcasing how incompetent we are at pool, while steadily putting more tasty liver-killing liquid into our bodies. My only complaint about the place was the weird inhospitable vibe we got from the staff who it seemed have never conversed with a human before. Nevertheless, if you can look past their wide-eyed tilted head glances (presumably studying human behaviour for the mothership) then grab a beer or two and enjoy the chilled atmosphere.

Metro Pub & Chebak Pub

Unlike the relaxed atmosphere of Save the Ales, Metro Pub and Chebak Pub serve the simple purpose of getting enough alcohol into your system to make the dancing (that you inexplicably find yourself doing) seem much less embarrassing than it actually is. Metro pub was the accidental night out after an extraordinary number of beers at Chicken Star. Whoops. Despite it being a Sunday night, we still mustered enough alcohol fuelled energy to get the very few people in there mildly interested in joining us on the dance floor. Jeroen was wooing a local lass. Brendan was cutting shapes that the human race has never, and will never, see the likes of again. And I was skirting the line between enthusiastically rapping every line of a Jay Z song on the dance floor and the sleepy existential sadness of my slowly approaching sobriety on the sofas. Shame we didn’t experience it on a Friday or Saturday because from what we heard it is possibly the best night out in Bishkek. You heard it here first.

Our trip to Chebak Pub on the other hand was a celebration of reuniting with Drazen. We had also been to Chicken Star beforehand listening to live music (now I’m starting to get a handle on why I’m running so low on money), so we decided to keep the night going and head to Chebak Pub. It was a big place, but we turned up a bit too late to get the most out of it because the dance floor was just shutting down. However, we got a few cheap pitchers, a couple of awfully efficient shots then headed back to the hostel without the wherewithal to head to Metro Pub to finish off the night in style. No, that doesn’t sound right. Squalor? Yeah, that’s closer.

Social Coffee

We switch the mood once again, but this time away from the ethanol-soaked insalubrity of the bar scene and instead to a coffee shop. Social coffee is an enormous set up on a corner in central Bishkek. It was baffling to us that it could make any money seeing how enormous it was (both inside and outside) and with almost no-one there half the time, but nevertheless it had tasty drinks and good food. Brendan wolfed down a bolognese one morning while I cranked my chicken wings for breakfast. It wasn’t magnificent for food but the chilled environment away from the searing hot Bishkek midday heat made for a nice setting to relax.

Final Bites

Bishkek was an escape for us. Central Asian cuisine has its moments, with some spectacular bread and pasty-like somsas, but on the most part it is an oil-soaked, spiceless, food desert. You are forsaken to the barren wastes of slowly approaching scurvy and heart disease in this unfathomably beautiful area of the world and that is where Bishkek rises to the occasion. We didn’t eat one bite of Central Asian cuisine here and our bodies thanked us for it. Our livers may have been worse for wear but the tastebuds that had been practically dormant for over a month were grateful and ready for action once again.