Why translating Russian menus into English doesn’t work … Cafe Karimbek in Samarkand review

One the best things about going to other countries, is eating in those countries. Along with a heaping helping of great food, you’re bound to get some epic menu fails, especially in any part of Asia. Our first series of menu fails was a restaurant named “Karimbek”. This restaurant was actually pretty awesome : the food was good (they have a wide range of kebabs (shashlik) and they have colorful Uzbek, Arab and European dance shows… with some “dancing”. wide range of kebabs. In terms of recommendations, I would definitely put this one up there, if you’re in Samarkand.

This being said, the point of this post is not really the food but rather the massive menu fails. For instance, can you tell me which part of the chicken, does the sirloin come from? Never mind trying to figure out what “Branded Guard” is. Oh yeah, and there is some snack called ‘Reach Pleasure” … I can’t even figure out that one either.

If you’ve figured out the “chicken sirloin”, then how about some salad. How if you can actually figure out the salad names, how eating some language? (BTW when you translate “tongue” from Russian into English … you get “language”)

If you’re still feeling like salad, you can have some more gems … by now you’re thinking .. what’s the point of having an English menu, if you’re just going to have some fucked up names on everything?

How about some snacks? If you can figure out what the “Mother in law” hot snack is, then you’ve jumped 1000 places on the Mensa list, because I couldn’t figure out what the hell they meant.

But the creme de la creme of this all was the dessert menu. I totally wanted to order the “Luxurious Balls” for desert, but then I realized I already have those <insert drumroll>

As for the actual food and decor … it’s pretty nice … aside from all the people gawking over the foreigners at my table. BTW, in case you forgot that you were in Uzbekistan – the “Face Control” signs will definitely remind you that you’re not in North America.

We learned that Uzbeks love to dance, even though what they call “dancing” can be a little weird. The restaurant transforms itself into a dance club between courses.

Here is a 39 seconds of awesomeness from the restaurant

As for a list of restaurants you might want to try … Advantours put up a list, it’s a good start.

TIP: You’ll also notice, that I walk around with my own hot sauce in Uzbekistan … all Trinis need to walk around with their own hot sauce when in Uzbekistan.

As for the bill … it’s pretty cheap when three people can have a great meal with liquor for 27$ USD

About Rishiray

Rishi Sankar is a Cloud HRMS Project Manager/ Solution Architect. Over the past 15+ years, he has managed to combine his overwhelming wanderlust with a desire to stay employed, resulting in continuing stints with 3 major consulting firms (IBM, Deloitte, Accenture). He documents his adventures around the world on "Ah Trini Travelogue" with pictures and stories from the road/tuk-tuk/camel/rickshaw. You can follow him on Twitter at @rishiray and on Facebook at "Ah Trini Travelogue . He doesn't like Chicken Curry but loves Curry Chicken and is always trying to find the perfect Trinidadian roti on the road. He also doesn't like cheese and kittens ... and definitely not together. E-mail from his blog is appreciated like a 35 yr old Balvenie at rishi@rishiray.com

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