Besh Qozon — Restaurant in Tashkent

I believe this is the place to visit when in Uzbekistan or Tashkent specifically, else you visit alone or if you are with a tour you will be brought here by the tour group. It's really an eye opener here you can see a big main kitchen where the staff will be hard at work preparing the food that the customers will it. Basically its just 1 main dish which is the Plov and probably with different kinds of meat. When I arrived alone, I was at a loss of what to do other than visiting the kitchen and catching all the live action. I walked to the counter wanting to order food then I was told I had to be served with order taken by the waiters and then make payment only after the meal. So I walked back to the dining area and waited for someone to notice me and bring me to an empty table. I didn't really know what to order other than the Plov, and I didn't know what meat to choose I just let the waiter made the decision. He only asked me if I wanted drinks and salad. Quite surprised to see bread being served as well and they really gave me quite a lot of bread. I knew I couldn't finish and didn't want to waste so I asked for just half. I cannot understand the habit of the people here to eat bread with rice. I think the locals are used to it they will go hungry without eating like that and for me it was quite a torture as you feel like puking because it can be very filling. Nevertheless, the Plov was good and I was told there was a slice of horse meat in there. Great first experience of trying horse meat. It was quite an enjoyable meal and also witnessing the spectacle in the kitchen. There are 2 areas to dine, either outdoor or air-conditioning in the indoors. I would also recommend visiting this as this is not something common you see when you visit...

I went on Friday, at 12:50, peak time. There's plenty of sitting space outside and inside, so even though it's packed, it doesn't feel packed. You can walk freely into the large kitchen where they are cooking the stuff. Local tourists walk in with their cigarettes ablaze to gawk at other tourists.

The "set menus" (25k onwards) are no more. The waiter told me the menu on google is 3 years old. Update please?

So i ordered the same items on the set menu (25,000 old price): Wedding pilaf (0.7, not full) + Tomato salad + Half bread. The total ran up to 47,600. (Actually 48,000 because the cashier lady kept 400 for herself without asking and gave me 2000 change from a 50k note that i gave her. Bravo!)

Bread and tomato salad is immediately served, along with a bill slip. (After food, you stand in one of the queues to pay.).

Then you wait for food to arrive. In my case i was told 15-20 mins, but it took 37 mins. First i had to find my English speaking waiter to remind him, then he was shocked, then he walked inside the kitchen and immediately walked out, magically, with a plate in hand. So much for the waiting time.

As for the rice, it was al dente, every gain was chewy, severely undercooked for my taste, and every spoonful is spent chewing 32 times. Some pieces of meat were less chewy than the rice. Go figure. I could barely did through half the plate. Maybe introduce 0.4 size?

Also, the toilet is INSIDE the kitchen premise, in one corner, which is...

My youngest son had karate finals, and here in the basement of Beshqozon café there are several area where children do sports. It was 0600pm and there were many people, that surprised actually. I had 2 hours and usually I don’t eat in the evenings especially heavy meals, so I managed to go back and forth watching the plov. However, I gave up after 75minutes and was heading to the table. There seemed to be many waiters, so took a table and waited for someone to come. After 10mniutes no one did, so I decided to keep the service fee and headed to the cashier, to pay and deliver myself. There were 4types of plov so I just took a regular Tashkent one 0.7kg for 32k soum or 2.9usd. Then I went and paid for salad 6ksoum or 0.5 US cents. Well I have to admit, that I have read a lot from locals about bad plov here, but I didn’t expect it myself. The plov is 2* out of 5. If you come and see the scale of the kitchen and huge pots they cook plov you will definitely want to taste so did I. But, it doesn’t worth it. What I noticed is that the chefs are young, perhaps that is the main reason. Anyway, if you have guests and want to impress them with scale of cooking plov, you can come here and they will be impressed as they don’t eat plov a lot wouldn’t notice it. If you are local and want to eat plov avoid this place. It’s Tashkent the city of many cafes where they cook...