Uzbekistan: First Plov

Two weeks after arriving to Tashkent, I still hadn’t eaten plov, Uzbekistan’s national dish.  Plov – also known as palov, osh, and pilaf – is a dish of rice and meat with vegetables, seasonings, and sometimes extras like raisins, chickpeas, or fruit.  Here in Uzbekistan, it is usually made with lamb or mutton, and there are subtle regional differences.  In some areas, it is made with orange carrots; in others, yellow.  Some people use white rice; others use dark rice.  Many people include onions and garlic, but not everyone.  In some regions, it’s fried longer.  Some plovs are more oily than others.  Salt, pepper, paprika, coriander, cumin, and bay leaf are common plov seasonings, but, of course, there are variations on this front too.  It’s a dish where everyone seems to have a special recipe, but to an untrained eye like mine, the end results are all pretty similar.

In any case, I was overdue to give it a try, and our Uzbek friends Arpa and Tasma were keen to remedy this situation.  They invited Eitan and me for some Sunday afternoon plov, and we happily accepted.

The ladies picked us up in the early afternoon, and in a quarter of an hour, we pulled into the parking lot of a humble restaurant on the edge of town.

Passing by a meat case stocked with horse and other red meats, we were received by a waiter at the entrance to the dining room and seated near a window.  Rays of light slanted down on our table, illuminating the dust in the air.

In addition to our foursome, there was another table with a handful of people near us and a group of probably 20 people at the far end of the room.  This larger group seemed to be several generations of a family, from the elders to the toddlers.

Arpa and Tasma handled the ordering, focusing on the classics, and a minute after the order was placed, the waiter returned with a pot of tea and a round of naan.

It is tradition in Uzbekistan to return the first three cups of tea back to the pot, a duty which Arpa undertook.

“Is there any meaning behind this?” I asked as she was pouring the tea into the cup and back into the teapot.

“Well,” she replied, “it mixes the tea.”

The answer was more pragmatic than I had expected, but it did make sense.

Tasma tore the bread into several pieces, and we snacked on that until the plov arrived a few minutes later.

Eitan got a special vegetarian(-ish) plov, which was basically a normal plov with the chunks of lamb removed.  The rest of us had a normal, meaty plov, topped with horse sausage and quail eggs.  A small plate of chopped tomatoes and onions was served on the side.

Plov is served!

I started my plov experience by eating a few of the horse sausages off the top.  These sausages are made by stuffing the horse’s rib meat into its intestines, and they were pretty rich.

“Take care,” Tasma warned.  “Kazi [horse meat] is rich in iron and can cause high blood pressure.”

This news was most welcome as it gave me a lifetime excuse if I ever wanted to get out of eating horse.  It was just like in Pakistan when I had been warned not to eat too much brain masala as it was very high in cholesterol.  After that, I had only to mention that I was watching my cholesterol and whoever was trying to coax me to eat brain would relent without prejudice.  Now, in the case of kazi, I would simply have to say I was watching my blood pressure, and I would similarly be off the hook.  Brilliant!

After the horse sausage, I put a few scoops of plov on my plate along with a quail egg.

It certainly smelled good, and I was looking forward to my first bite.  I plunged my spoon into the edge of my mound of plov, and as I pulled it out, I recoiled.  Nestled in the oily rice, there was a black hair – wavy, but not curly, and a few inches long.

“Be this hair of man or beast?” I wondered.

I was repulsed to be sure, but since I was out with other people, I was forced to act like an adult.  I discreetly plucked out the hair and concealed it under my plate.

Then I slowly scooped the rice again, wary of finding another surprise.

Luckily no other hairs surfaced, and I was able to clean my plate.

“How do you like the plov?” Arpa asked me as I sipped my tea.

“It’s nice,” I answered.

When I was a child, my parents often prepared rice with meat.  Sometimes they used chicken, turkey, or pork, but most frequently, they used beef.  Add in some onions, maybe some bell pepper and garlic, and it was basically plov we were eating.  Thus, the Uzbek plov, while not exactly exotic, was satisfying and inspired a bit of nostalgia.  Indeed, it was nice.

Uzbekistan: Battle of the Bands

With an Embassy concert taking place later in the day, there was a certain buzz around campus.  Most people were looking forward to attending, but not my colleague, Apollo.

“That place is gonna be mobbed up with Uzbeks,” he told me, “and they are only going because they think there will be free alcohol.  You can count me out!”

This was my first such event at the Embassy, so despite Apollo’s warning, I went to the concert anyway.  After all, I was under no obligation to stay if I didn’t like it.

The concert, which was held at the Old Embassy compound in the Chilanzar district, was part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a network of concerts held annually around the world to promote tolerance.  Daniel Pearl was a journalist killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

When I arrived to the venue, a number of Uzbeks were waiting in line to pass the security checkpoint.  I bypassed the queue and entered through the employees-only line.

The chairs facing the stage were about a third filled when I entered, and Embassy staff were making final arrangements for the show which would start in a few minutes.  RC Cola was sponsoring the event, and consistent with its tendency toward over-the-top American imagery (at least here in Uzbekistan), a woman in a red, white, and blue cheerleading outfit was behind a table distributing sodas.  Eitan was coming to the concert separately, so while I waited for him, I chatted with some colleagues and sipped my RC.  Around this time, someone randomly handed me a bag of popcorn.

The show kicked off with some speeches, and then the music commenced.  Up front were chart-topping artists Shahzoda, DJ Piligrim, and the big enchilada Yalla featuring Farrukh Zakirov.  Yalla has been a hit band for years, and its most famous track, "Uchkuduk," was the song of the decade in 1980s USSR.  Yalla performed a few songs, including "Uchkuduk," and the crowd went wild.  Then the program shifted to the amateur talent who had competed for slots in the show by sending in demo tapes.

The amateur acts were diverse.  There was a pint-sized girl belting out the Frozen anthem, “Let It Go,” a garage band from Tashkent’s Westminster University, a young woman billed as Uzbekistan’s first banjo player, and finally “Uzbek Bob Dylan.”

While some were better than others, the performers generally put on good shows.  Still, I was restless.  I didn’t feel like dancing at the foot of the stage, and I didn’t feel like sitting in a folding chair.  I ended up going with a third option: standing in the back and talking.

I was chatting with a colleague, and when he left in search of a bathroom, an Uzbek guy walked up.

“Do you work at the Embassy?” he asked me.

I confirmed his suspicion, which led to his ask.  The banjo lady was performing at the time, and this guy was cringing.

“This is pretty bad,” he told me, “but some whiskey would help.”

I felt bad for the lady actually.  Her corn-pone performance was fine for what it was, but I felt the Embassy organizers had done her a disservice by putting her in the show.  She fit in the lineup about as well as a didgeridoo player might.

“She’s not so bad,” I told the man, and then I pointed out the RC Cola station for all his refreshment needs.

“Come on, man,” he pleaded, “I need more than cola.”

“There’s a shop across the street,” he continued.  “Let’s go get a bottle.”

He needed my help because anything he might purchase would be confiscated at the security checkpoint.  My Embassy badge was his golden ticket for smuggling booze inside, or so he hoped. 

The booze store: so close, yet so far away.

I spent the next few minutes deflecting his requests and ultimately ditching him.

I can't speak for the other 500 Uzbeks at the concert, but Apollo certainly had this guy's number.

Uzbekistan: RC Cola Factory Tour

RC Cola is a fixture in America, especially in the South, but it’s also making a name for itself in Uzbekistan.  I grew up with RC (yes, sometimes with peanuts, sometimes with MoonPies), so when the Embassy’s morale office organized a tour to the RC factory in Tashkent, it was a no-brainer.  I signed up Eitan and me.

The facility is on the edge of the city, and after a twenty-minute drive, we were ready to get started.

There were about twenty people total on the tour, our colleagues and their family members, and as we were ushered into the tasting room, it struck me that Eitan and I were the only adults there without accompanying children.  I didn’t feel out of place exactly, but I did wonder why none of our childless colleagues had attended.  I guess some view soda as a childhood treat.

In the tasting room, we all took seats around little plastic tables.  Then the staff presented us with samples of RC as well as thick, plastic bottles that were about two inches long.  These little bottles, given to us as souvenirs, were the same type that would be expanded into half-liter bottles on the factory floor through the magic of heat, pressure, and mechanics.

The general manager welcomed us to the facility, and then with the help of his lab-coated quality control manager, he walked us through the tasting.

“First we must look at the product,” he told us.

“Hold it up to the light,” he instructed.  “The color should be dark.”

We dutifully held up our glasses for the visual inspection.  Check!

“Now swirl it gently,” he continued, “and put the glass to your nose.”

“Take in the aroma!” he exclaimed.

We dutifully swirled and sniffed, and at this point, I noticed some people rolling their eyes.

“Now take a small sip,” he told us, “and roll it around in your mouth.”

“Let it roll over your tongue!” he gushed.  “Feel the bubbles!”

The eye-rolling intensified.  Were we drinking wine or cola?

“Now,” the GM concluded, “if you like what you taste, you should drink freely.”

Whew!  What a relief!  We all drank freely.

“Does everyone like it?” the GM asked.

Whether people genuinely liked it or they were just being polite, everyone had nice things to say about their RC experience.  The praise wasn’t quite universal, though.

“I don’t like it,” a young girl in the back of the room announced.

The GM laughed this off while the girl’s mortified parents reminded her that if she didn’t have something nice to say she shouldn’t say anything at all.

We resumed our soda sipping as our hosts told us a bit more about the operation.  In addition to RC, the factory also bottled water.  It was a family-owned venture, and they were happy to be the sole supplier of RC in Uzbekistan.

“Has anyone tasted RC before in America?” the GM asked.

I didn’t feel like raising my hand, but a few other people played along.

“And does it taste the same?” the GM continued.

“Yes,” one of my colleagues replied, “it’s pretty much the same.”

I knew this was the wrong answer, and the GM responded as I knew he would.

“Actually,” he said, “the formula we use here is a bit different than the one you are used to in America.”

Pretty much every soda manufacturer tweaks their formulas for overseas markets, usually adjusting the sweetness of the product, to suit local tastes.  However, the flavor profile is basically the same.  That’s what makes a Coke a Coke or in this case, what makes an RC an RC.

Next, the GM opened the floor to questions.

“Will you ever make RC clear?” a pony-tailed girl asked.

I think she was envisioning something akin to Crystal Pepsi, but the GM recoiled at the question.

“Cola must always be black!” he responded with a hint of indignation.

Since the topic of color was broached, however, he astutely took the opportunity to mention some future offerings from the factory.

“We’ll be launching a clear soft drink soon,” he told us, “like Sprite, but different.”

“After that we plan to introduce an orange soda,” he continued, “like Fanta, but different.”

I liked how he referenced these other beverages and then made sure to differentiate from them.

With the exciting news of RC Sprite and RC Fanta on the horizon, our session in the tasting room came to a close.

We headed to the factory floor and suited up in flimsy smocks.

Our guide on the factory floor gave us plenty of specs.  This process required this much water.  This machine produced this many gallons of soda per hour.  This extruder was heated to such and such a temperature and could form some impressive quantity of bottles per day.  It was all very informative, and it all went in one ear and out the other.

We were all too busy watching the specialized machines dancing their ballet under the watchful eyes of a team of guys who were trying their hardest not to acknowledge us.  I couldn’t blame them for their reaction, though.  I’d do the same thing if twenty people appeared in my office with a guide and lined up in front of my desk.

Pay no attention to the tourists behind you.

Both lines were running during our tour, so we got to watch bottles of both RC and water scooting around on conveyor belts.

Then after about 15 minutes, the show was over.  We de-smocked and emerged into the sunlight where a few RC employees presented us with t-shirts and free bottles of RC for the road.

It was a fine ending to the outing, like a refreshing belch after a frosty glass of RC.

U!S!A!  U!S!A!

Uzbekistan: Dining Out: Angelina

Keen to find some go-to neighborhood joints, Eitan and I decided to try Angelina, a Korean restaurant, one evening for dinner.

The tree out front, perennially draped with Christmas lights, beckoned us inside, and soon the hostess was leading us into the dining room.

Two men were seated at a table by the restroom, but otherwise, the place was empty.  Eitan and I sat at a table on the back wall.

The dining room itself looked as though it had started as a temporary structure and was later converted to a permanent one.  The room was painted white with a tree growing in the middle and a bar to the side.

When our waitress appeared, I requested an English menu.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have one.

This was not a problem, however, because I already knew what I wanted.

“Can I get bibimbap?” I asked.

The waitress stared at me blankly.

Stepping in to fill the language gap, Eitan conversed for a few minutes with the waitress.

Having sorted out some details, he turned back to me.

“They have a dish with a lot of meat,” he said.

As this wasn’t very descriptive, I wanted to know a bit more.

“What else is there?” I asked.

At this point the waitress leaned in, and in a low whisper, she asked Eitan a question.

“She wants to know if you eat pork,” he told me.

This hushed approach was a bit amusing.  Plenty of Uzbek Muslims eat pork too, but I guess many don’t necessarily like to advertise the fact in public.

Once I admitted to eating pork, the waitress recommended another dish, although the only thing clear to me was that it contained pork.

Before we had come to Uzbekistan and during our first few days in country, Eitan had assured me he would help me navigate these scenarios since he’s conversational in both Russian and Uzbek.  At Angelina, however, I could see he was growing tired of being the middleman, my seeing-eye dog, my Sherpa.  The message was received, and so, from ten pages of menu, all I knew was that they had a “dish with a lot of meat” and a dish with pork.  I didn’t get any clarity on the bibimbap.

I chose the dish with a lot of meat, accompanied by vodka.

In Uzbekistan, vodka is always served with a chaser, and on this occasion, I decided to try the curious jar on the counter filled with sliced fruit – the house compote.

Eitan and I drank our vodka and compote while we waited for our food, and we both agreed that the compote was a bad choice.  It was so sweet and syrupy (as I guess it’s meant to be) that we ordered a Coke as a less-sweet alternative.

Soon the complimentary salads arrived that are served at most Korean eateries, and fifteen minutes after that, our food arrived.

As advertised, I was presented a big plate of meat with sliced onion on top.  And Eitan received a big beautiful bowl of salmon bibimbap!  If they had salmon bibimbap, I reasoned, they surely also had traditional beef bibimbap, which is what I had wanted all along.  There was no point in making a fuss at this point, however, so I ate my plate of meat.

plate of meat

As we were eating, the two other diners were clearly taking advantage of the fact that the place was deserted.  They kept demanding “Arab music,” and the bartender was quick to comply.  Unfortunately, it seemed the restaurant only had one suitable number on the playlist, and we had to listen to the same belly-dancing song blasting through the room over and over again.

Eventually our fellow diners left, and Eitan and I were the only people left.  The music returned to a normal volume, and the playlist was allowed to continue unfettered.  The staff also took the opportunity to chat with us.

The bartender asked us where we were from and some other basic questions, and in turn, we asked him about the other offering at Angelina, karaoke.

He gave us a tour of the private singing rooms and left us back at our table with a few copies of his business card.

Then we settled our bill and bibimbapped on home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line on Angelina:

Food:

    Tasty
    Average ü
    Bad

Service:

    Attentive
    Average ü
    Lacking

Overall Experience:

    Memorable
    Enjoyable ü
    Passable
    Forgettable
    Regrettable

Uzbekistan: Dining Out: Broadway Lounge Bar

“Do you have an English menu?” I asked.

The waitress stared blankly back at me.

When Eitan posed the same question in Russian, however, the light bulb clicked on.  Our waitress retreated to the bar and returned with an English menu.

All the usual suspects were on offer, from soups to salads to pasta, but the burger page caught my eye, in large part due of the unnatural bun colors.

a rainbow of buns

I opted for the Broadway burger, which came with a regular bun, and Eitan went for a Greek salad and lentil soup.

When I tried to order, a small problem revealed itself.  While the waitress had provided us with an English menu, she couldn’t speak the language herself.  Furthermore, not every menu item had a corresponding photo, so it wasn’t possible to order by pointing.  Eitan had to order everything in Russian, and had he not been there, I would have been left struggling.  It would seem the English menu was only marginally useful.

As Eitan and I waited for our food and sipped our beer, excitement bubbled up at a table across the room.  About a dozen religious women, their heads modestly covered with scarves, were celebrating a birthday.  After one of the women received a cake, they positioned themselves for a group photo, the waitress manning the camera.

Throughout the course of their party, Eitan and I watched numerous elaborate drinks glide by on the waitress’s tray.  Alas, they were all mocktails since the establishment didn’t sell any alcohol beyond beer.

When our food was nearly ready, the waitress returned with some supplies.  She gave Eitan a spoon and then presented me with a sharper knife and two black latex gloves.  These gloves were meant to protect my hands from any burger leakage, but I wasn’t interested.

As a colleague put it, “What’s next?  Gloves for ribs?”

He’s right; it’s a slippery slope indeed.

A man who was sitting on the patio just outside our window made use of the gloves, and no doubt, he looked peculiar.  It was almost as if he had been murdering someone when he got a hankering for a good burger.

Our food arrived soon after glove-man’s did, and despite a lack of protective gear, we enjoyed our lunch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line on Broadway Lounge Bar:

Food:

    Tasty
    Average ü
    Bad

Service:

    Attentive
    Average ü
    Lacking

Overall Experience:

    Memorable
    Enjoyable ü
    Passable
    Forgettable
    Regrettable

Uzbekistan: Tales from the Bar: Elvis Bar

It was our first weekend in Uzbekistan, so when a colleague invited Eitan and me for a drink, we were more than happy to accept.  We were heading to Elvis Bar for some live music.

From Tulepo to Tashkent

Elvis Bar is a modest establishment, but, already aware of this fact, our friends had reserved a table.  A few other people joined once we arrived, and we ended up with a party of six.

Eitan and I ordered vodka sodas, and our friends, whisky cokes, and soon enough the band set up and began their show.

The band was a trio, and the lead singer, with his falsetto vocals and wide range, was well suited to cover musicians like Radiohead, Cold Play, and Robbie Williams.

In such an intimate venue, we were only a few meters from the band, and it struck me how the performers seemed to avoid eye contact.  The lead singer spent much of the time with his eyes closed or looking down, and the other two seemed to prefer staring off into space.

I'm told much of the Elvis artwork was acquired at a U.S. Embassy auction.

The performance went on for quite a while, and our focus on the music waxed and waned.  There was plenty of chatting at the table, some hearty laughs, numerous drink refills, and random bits of food appearing, usually inspired by something we saw on a neighboring table.

Our group also spent a lot of time on door duty.  The bar's main door fit snugly (overly so, it would seem) into the door jamb, and getting it closed required a strong tug (or a push from the opposite side).  Without fail, person after person would walk outside, lightly pulling the door behind him as he exited the room.  And without fail, the door would pop open, exposing us to a draft.

Often times, someone at my table would shout out some helpful advice - "Close the damn door!" or a variation thereof - but it would generally go unheeded.  As such, one of us had to get up every two or three minutes to handle it, and naturally, this was a bit of a nuisance.

When the band eventually finished, they packed up their gear and the bartender turned on some Top 40 hits.  Then something interesting happened at the door for a change.

Two Uzbek men, clearly intoxicated, got into a scuffle.  The less drunk of the two was trying to force the other one out of the bar, so we had a front-row seat to some aggressive pushing.

It didn't take long for the security guard to intervene, but his response was not what I expected.  In most places around the world, a bouncer would have, well, bounced these two guys.  Or he would have at least thrown out one of them to end the drama.

In this case, the guard did the opposite.  He locked the door and counseled the guys until things calmed down.

The discussion was just out of earshot, and in a language I don't understand, but I like to think it started with a classic Simpsons' line, "Let's stop the fussin' and a-feudin'."

Whatever was said, the three guys eventually came to an understanding.

Like I said, this was not what I expected to happen.

"What gives?" I asked my friends.

As explained to me, if the guard had ejected the men and they continued fighting outside and created a disturbance, it could have potentially attracted the attention of the police.  If that happened, the police could close the whole establishment for promoting unruly behavior.  Thus, to avoid this fate, the guard played the role of peacemaker.

We got the check not long after the fight broke up, and I had my first Uzbek sticker-shock moment.  The bill came to 1.5 million soum.  That's about $180, which is totally reasonable for six people drinking and eating for five hours, but all the zeros on the receipt were shocking at first glance.

We scraped together enough to pay, and when we left the bar, I made sure to pull the door completely shut.

As we stood on the curb trying to hail a taxi, a friendly group of drunk Brits showed up from another bar, also in search of a taxi.  They found a ride before we did, and as one chap in the group fell particularly ungracefully into the back seat, he implored us to join him at some club I had never heard of.  I wouldn't be surprised if he had extended the same invitation to the lamp post.

Uzbekistan: Bek

For our first restaurant experience in Tashkent, Eitan wanted to try a branch of Bek that was near our house.  I think he remembered this chain from his previous visits to Uzbekistan.

We found the place without much ado and took a table toward the back of the main room.  On the stage up front, a man was wowing the crowd with his Michael Jackson dance moves.  As MJ's hits played, this man performed the matching choreography.  I couldn't see him that well from our table, but he seemed to be doing a pretty good job.

As the show continued, a waitress came to take our order.  We mulled over the drink options for a minute, and something caught Eitan's eye.

"You wanna try Uzbek champagne?" he asked me.

I was game, so we ordered a bottle.  Eitan also ordered a few salads for his dinner, but I wasn't hungry at the time.

By now, the Michael Jackson performer had finished his act, and a group of traditional dancers was on the stage.  This group consisted of three ladies and a man.  The man, who was dressed all in black and reminded me of Westley from The Princess Bride, was leaping around the women like a gazelle.

Heads in the crowd popped up as people set aside their vodka to clap along to the music.

When our "champagne" appeared at the table, Eitan and I were sure we had received the wrong bottle.  According to the label, we received a bottle of Chardonnay.  There is such a thing as sparkling Chardonnay, of course, but this is not what we received.

For starters, the bottle was not under pressure and was closed with a standard wine cork.  When our waitress, Maftuna, popped it, there was nary a pop at all.  This was surely a normal bottle of Chardonnay.

When Maftuna poured the first glass, however, things became more ambiguous, as a tiny stream of bubbles snaked from the bottom of the glass toward the surface.  These bubbles only lasted for a few seconds, however, and led me to believe that we were not drinking a sparkling wine at all, but rather an immature wine still undergoing fermentation.

The bottle only cost $3, so we didn't bother to send it back.

With notes of apple, vinegar, and curiously, salami, my first sip of the Uzbek champagne was, uh, memorable.

Meanwhile, the traditional dancers had wrapped things up, and booming Arabian music filled the hall.  Enter the belly-dancers.

Half a dozen young women wearing sheer fabrics and sparkles convened on the stage from a few different directions.  They only gyrated for a few minutes, however, before they began leaving the stage.

"Crap!" I thought to myself.

I'm not a fan of audience participation.  I don't want the comedian on stage to talk to me; I don't want the clown at the circus to pull me aside for a gag, and I don't want a dancer to come to my table.  As I watched the ladies fan out across the room, I felt a sense of dread.

Since Eitan and I were sitting toward the back of the room, it took several minutes for the ladies to reach us.  When they reached us, though, they really reached us.

Most diners had one or at most, two, dancers at their tables, but we ended up with four.  Perhaps like animals, they had smelled my fear.

Completely surrounded, I sipped on my special wine and stared straight at the table.  I would have been hard pressed to make the encounter more awkward without, say, covering my face with a napkin or laying my head on the table.

Eitan seemed to be enjoying the personal show more than I was, but after a few minutes, even he had reached his limit.  In an attempt to send the ladies on their way, Eitan pulled out his wallet and started tipping.

He gave the first two ladies 1,000 soum (about 12 U.S. cents) each, and they took their leave.

Eitan had no more 1,000-soum notes left at this point, and he discreetly tucked away his 5,000-, 10,000-, and 50,000-soum bills.  Neither of us felt like paying real money for a show we were never much into.

"What about this one?" he asked me.

He was holding a 200-soum note (about 2 U.S. cents).

"I guess you can try it," I answered.

Eitan handed it to one of the two remaining ladies at our table.  As we were now tipping in pennies, the other lady threw in the towel and left empty-handed.  The woman who had received the 200 soum wasn't happy either.  She threw it down on the table and continued to dance, trying to elicit a bigger tip.  After another minute, however, she too realized she was fighting a losing battle.  She collected the 200-soum note that she had rejected only moments before and followed her friends into the dressing room.

After the belly-dancers vacated, the DJ announced a birthday.

Right on cue, the birthday girl and her entourage emerged from one of the private rooms off the big room.  The girl stood in the center of the stage holding a bouquet of roses while her friends formed a ring around her and sang Happy Birthday (in English, to my surprise).  As they were merrily singing, the chef appeared with his apron and puffy hat, and presented the young lady a cake with a substantial sparkler erupting from the top.

I understand that smiling protocols vary in different cultures around the world, but I had to laugh at this birthday celebration.

While a boisterous crowd was singing, the girl and the chef stood in the middle of the circle, side-by-side and completely stone-faced, holding a cake emitting a stream of sparks.  It was like the painting American Gothic with light pyrotechnics.

After the English birthday song, the girl's friends sang a round in Russian, and the structured part of the evening drew to a close.  The DJ kicked on some Top 40.

As Eitan finished his dinner and we both worked on the champagne, a gaggle of older Uzbeks took to the dance floor, arms elevated, swaying from side to side to Despacito.

Uzbekistan: Our First 24 Hours

All good things must come to an end, so after five weeks of vacation, Eitan and I set out for our new home in Tashkent.  Traveling from Newark to Frankfurt to Istanbul and finally to Tashkent, the trip took about 28 hours door to door.

Our flight landed in Tashkent around 12:40 AM, and I was feeling duly beat-down as I made my way down the planeside stairs to the buses waiting below.  It was a brisk 40 degrees outside (4 C), but it felt glorious, even in short sleeves, having flown sauna class on Turkish Airlines for the past four and a half hours.

All the plane's passengers were packed into three or four buses, and when the buses offloaded everyone at the terminal building minutes apart, unsurprisingly there was a substantial bottleneck.  With only a few stanchions to organize the passengers, a mob basically formed in front of the passport control area, in which there were three or four immigration officers working the windows.  Two facilitators were in place to keep the crowd at bay, but it wasn't an easy task.  These two gents spent their time pleading and reasoning with, and sometimes barking at, irritable passengers who just wanted to go home.

In addition to the passport control mob, there was a smaller mob outside the visa-on-arrival window.  I needed to avail myself of this service, so Eitan went through the normal line, and I queued up for my visa.  Having identified me as a diplomat, one of the facilitators moved me to the front of the line, and I didn't have to wait long.  As my visa was being processed, however, trouble was brewing at the window.  Three young men from Israel had popped up at the front of the line to "ask a question," but the others were convinced they were simply trying to cut.  Tempers were rising as I left with my new visa and cleared passport control.

I made my way to baggage claim and met up with Eitan.  He was standing with our sponsors, Dale and Sandra, two kind individuals who had made logistical arrangements before our arrival, stocked our new house with supplies, and shown up to the airport in the middle of the night to meet us.

We made our introductions and chatted as we waited for Eitan's and my bags to appear, but after 10 or 15 minutes, I noticed that our bags had already arrived.  They were sitting beside the conveyor belt.

By the time we got home, unpacked a few things, and went to bed, it was 3 AM.  At noon we went into the office.

On that first day at the Embassy, we met with the human resources staff to begin the check-in process, took a tour of the compound, and met our new colleagues.  Neither Eitan nor I had slept well, so a light day of administrative processing was enough.

In contrast to the mega embassy we had left in Kabul where the average person knows a few dozen faces out of the hundreds on the compound, the much smaller embassy in Tashkent had a friendlier, small-town feel.  And just like on Cheers, everyone knew our names.  As we walked around the compound we were approached several times by new colleagues.

"Are you Chris and Eitan?" someone would ask.

People were expecting us so when they spotted two new guys walking around with blue badges, they put two and two together.

The same thing happened with some of the Uzbek staff too.

When we went to talk to the cell-phone technician, we introduced ourselves.

"I know who you are," he told us.

Everyone we met, including my immediate officemates, seemed nice.  As usually happens, though, I shook maybe thirty hands that first day and I retained only about three names.

After work, Eitan and I took a walk around our neighborhood.  Our house is located about five minutes from a major road, lined with shops, restaurants, and a Metro stop, so we had plenty of things to see.

After we had walked around for about 45 minutes, we went to an open-air market and Eitan bought us some pumpkin somsas to try.  Somsa is the Uzbek name for samosa.  Fresh out of the oven, these were a nice treat.

While we were at the market, we browsed the produce, and I was pleasantly surprised at the prices.  At first glance I didn't see any fruits and vegetables priced at more than 50 cents per pound, and many items were considerably lower.  The selection was nice as well.

Before we went home, we made one last stop to check out the supermarket.  The layout was pretty user-friendly, and even though I don't speak Russian or Uzbek, it was easy to find everything.

As always, I kept watch for anything unique as we made our way through the aisles, and it was in the egg section that I hit pay dirt.

I picked up some chicken eggs for the house, and then I noticed boxes of quail eggs next to them.

"Wow," I thought, "quail eggs!"

Then I looked past the quail eggs and noticed something much cooler: ostrich eggs!  These made the quail eggs look boring by comparison.

chicken eggs are so old fashioned

Costing only about $8 an egg, I definitely see some ostrich omelets in my future.

Having explored for two hours, though, we called it a night.  Sandra and Dale had prepared us a pasta dish, so we warmed it up for dinner and paired it with a local wine.

We went to bed twenty-two hours after we had landed, and I reflected on our interesting first day.

"It's going to be another good tour," I thought as I turned off the bedside lamp.