From Russia with love

by Reed Keefe

Cafe Kashkar
1141 Brighton Beach Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11235
718-743-3832

There are two things I, in my very limited experience, love about New York City. One is the fact that so many places, whether they actually are or not, feel like a find, a little secret that only a select few know about. The second, related thing is the fact that so many places feel foreign. Different clothes, different languages, different foods—I like feeling like a subway ride could have been an airplane ride, a short walk a road trip. It’s true that much of this feeling stems from my own ignorance about New York, but I think it also is an actual product of living in New York, where diversity and size mean that the city is constantly re-discoverable. Eating Uighur food in Brighton Beach combined both these elements, but, weirdly, at the same time, made me feel very at home.

About two weeks ago, Leila invited Sam and me to her Hannukah party in Park Slope. A trip from Morningside Heights to Park Slope is, of course, an invitation to make the most of the long journey and explore Brooklyn for the day. That day, it meant an afternoon at the aquarium and dinner in Brighton Beach (I, by the way, recommend a trip to Coney Island covered in snow—a place I think would strike most New Yorkers as foreign in its extreme quietness).

Exiting the subway at Brighton Beach is, for anyone who hasn’t been, a truly disorienting experience. Much like when I visited Flushing with Jason, I was struck by how abruptly the dominant culture and language changed. Here, that language was Russian, coupled with Cyrillic script on every store and, coincidentally, driving snow and freezing temperatures (Sam swears he saw a Boris Yeltsin look-a-like, birthmark and all). We walked and walked down Brighton Beach Ave., finally finding the tiny Café Kashkar, a place that some people say is the only authentic Uighur restaurant in New York City.

Café Kashkar did feel secret; few people were there, except a group of men toward the back - and without strict attention to the building numbers, anyone could have walked by the place. And, it felt foreign to me too. My knowledge about the Uighurs, or Uyghurs, a people who traditionally live in Central and some of East Asia, came not from food research but from human rights research. I knew about the Uighurs not because of their culture but because of challenges to it. I suppose you could say, that I knew about the Uighurs in a way totally divorced from their food. What I loved about eating at Café Kashkar, though, was the fact that everyone seemed willing to share. Our extremely kind waiter, taught me not only how to properly pour the tea (watch out, I’m apparently ready to be a good wife) and that the design I loved on the teapot represented the cotton grown in Uzbekistan, but also about every dish following that pot of tea.

But, onto the food. Oh my goodness, the food. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten food that was so warming. Everything was rich and meaty, a little spicy. First, the very innocuous sounding house salad (our very kind waiter also recognized my guilt about not eating enough vegetables). The salad was a wild mix of julienned carrots and cucumbers with a spicy, vinegary dressing, transforming what I returned to throughout the meal. Quickly, the samsa also came—flaky dough pies filled with lamb meat—and the pilaf, rice that would have been pretty typical except for the thick, buttery lamb on the bone (restraint was required to keep from gnawing).

Slipped in between the first meat appetizers and, well, the next meat appetizer, was the beautiful, comforting, lagman soup. Lagman really is everything I love in a comfort food—lamb (!), soup that is a little spicy, slightly thicker than normal but not yet a stew, warm, and filled with my very favorite carb—the noodle. The noodles really were revelatory—they stood up to the vibrant tasting broth and the tender lamb; they were still thick and slightly chewy after long intervals of soup slurping. If it were possible, I think I might have enjoyed lagman even more if I had seen those noodles being made. At the end of the meal, Sam pointed out the small window that opened onto the kitchen. There, in all his bald-headed, six foot something, 200 plus pounds glory, was a chef rapidly tossing the noodles before cooking them. I think that man may have personified the idea of “it’s even harder than it looks.”

Finally, we ended with manty. Manty are advertised in the restaurant window, and, therefore, I think a neighborhood selling point—for good reason. I’ve had very few dishes that are both so delicate and so hearty. Manty are meat dumplings. The outside of those dumplings, at least at Café Kashkar, are steamed and translucent, just barely revealing the rich mix of lamb inside. While the outside of the dumpling practically melts away, the lamb remains as substantial but as tender as it was throughout the meal, a perfect reminder of everything that was wonderful about dinner. Eating Uighur food in Brighton Beach did feel like our secret find, our foreign experience, but I think the perfection of each dish reminded me that these dishes are mainstays, not only within a culture but also for the people at the Café who make them so beautifully (those noodles!). I hope we find our way back again.

All in all, everyone should eat at Café Kashkar. And, let’s say, hypothetically, you don’t feel like eating (shame on you!), you should still watch the music videos they play. Uzbeki pop princesses, mark my words, are the next hot thing…


Reed Keefe is a thief of hearts.