Testo Mesto — Restaurant in Bishkek City

Fantastic spot for dumplings.

Came off a plane into Bishkek this evening and looked around for some decent food that wasn't hotel food. This place was nearby and seemed to have good reviews, so I decided to give it a try.

The dumplings are fantastic - lots of varieties to choose from, both the common varieties (beef with coriander, lamb, etc.) and the slightly more unusual (e.g. raspberries with cottage cheese). Although, given the inclusion of sweet fruit in otherwise savoury dishes you find all over central Asia, it isn't really all that unusual - after all, Kashmiri biryanis typically contain fruit and nuts, people in Pakistan's Hunza Valley put apricots into all sorts of things and fruit finds its way into all sorts of dishes in Iran. I had the lamb with zhusai, the cherry dumplings and some cheese dumplings - all were spot-on.

It's not a fine-dining joint, nor somewhere you'd go for a date - you order from the counter, pick up your cutlery from a separate bench, find a table, then, when the food's ready, go back to the counter and pick it up yourself. Hence, I gave it three stars for service and atmosphere. That's not a bad thing or saying it's substandard - it's exactly what I'd expect of an honest, down-to-earth eatery focused on delivering great food, rather than pretending to be something that it's not.

If you find yourself in Bishkek, Testo Mesto's dumplings...

My wife and I just moved into the city center and tried this at the recommendation of a friend. It was very good food, but I think they were kind of preoccupied with something when we were there as they forgot about us when we placed a second order. Other than that, we were very pleased with everything. Good food, cool atmosphere, homemade alcohol, and delicious desserts. You can even buy frozen dumplings (pelmini, etc) to go and...

No English menu, which made ordering a little difficult. Pretty interior. It’s self-service but has no clear call system (they seemed to be shouting out in Russian?), so we were a little confused. Thankfully a staff just brought our food to our table.

Decent dumplings, nothing mindblowing. Think the lagman is passable.

Have included screengrabs of my Google translations for fellow tourists who might...