I had a meeting in downtown last week and jumped at the chance to grab lunch to go! Boy do I miss working in downtown…all the good food is there! It sucks because a lot of the restaurants aren’t open during the weekends and parking can be such a pain/pricey. Silk Road Cafe serves up Uzbekistan food and I have never tried Uzbekistan anything so I was excited to give it a try. I just looked them up on Yelp and realized they are open on Saturdays! Hmmm…that’s got my brain going. Much more open street parking on Saturdays. I can safely say that I really enjoyed my dish so I would recommend you trying it out!

Plov (Osh) – $8.75
Rice pilaf with beef, carrots, chickpeas, and raisins.

I think this dish was okay. I don’t think I would get it again since it’s really mainly just a rice dish, why not try a plate with protein and their awesome rice already? The meat you can see here was dry…I’ve seen other pictures of the dish with slices of beef so it seems to be a bit inconsistent. I’m glad to have tried this dish but wouldn’t order it again.

Tabaka plate – $9.75
Uzbek-style rotisserie chicken thighs

YUM. First impressions, Uzbekistan people like using dill (lol). Do you see the fresh dill on my chicken and the carrots? Oh but it all works so well together. I’m not usually a big fan of carrots but these are some of the best carrots I have tasted. It’s definitely pickled carrots but it’s not sour, has more of a sweet garlicky taste. No raw carrot taste which I like. As I finished off my carrots, I found small red bits. I’m pretty sure it was beets…which explains the sweet flavor! Great!

The salad had a nice simple vinaigrette. The chicken thighs were tender, smoky, delicious. The basmati (?) rice was aromatic and soaked up the juices from the chicken nicely. Yumm…I definitely want to get this dish again.