Kavsar, Pittsburgh's only Uzbek eatery, will make you a fan

A grinning photo of Evgeni Malkin popped up on my Facebook timeline with the caption, “superstars like Malkin eat at Kavsar.” Stanley Cup champions are always to be trusted, so I added the dining spot to my must-try list.

Kavsar Uzbek Halal Restaurant, Pittsburgh's first and only Uzbek restaurant, is tucked away in Mt. Washington. After moving from Uzbekistan several years ago, Hayrullo Umaraliev and Tahmina Umaralieva, husband and wife and owner and chef respectively, opened the restaurant to share traditional Uzbek cuisine with the community.

Kasvar occupies two floors of a building on the corner of Shiloh Street and Southern Avenue. The ground floor has a tiny dining room, and the upstairs is a bigger space — but not by much. Both floors feature a flat-screen TV with images of Central Asia on rotation downstairs and imported pop-music videos upstairs. One of the walls upstairs also features that same smiling Geno image, ensuring me that I've come to the right place.

So what exactly can you expect to eat at an Uzbek restaurant? Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation, was the crossroads of the famed Silk Road, a trade route that linked China with the Middle East and Europe more than a thousand years ago. The Uzbek cuisine maintains influences from these regions even today. Meaning? The food — such as dumplings, noodles, kebabs and pilaf-esque rice — features familiarity in some of the bites. While probably new to most of us in the 'Burgh, the traditional dishes are delightfully comforting.

Looking for guidance on this food journey, I asked for help when ordering on my first visit. Our server kindly gave recommendations that proved to be some of the staples of the cuisine, including lagman and manti.

We started with julien, delicate purse-shaped crepe pancakes with a filling of mushrooms and cream. Crepes can be ordered in a variety of ways for an appetizer. In addition to the julien, crepes come rolled with cottage cheese, cherries or meat. This plate was the first sighting, and not the last, of dill. The herb makes an appearance in many dishes to encourage a distinct taste of freshness. Herbs such as dill are sourced locally in Pittsburgh, but spices make the trip from Uzbekistan. It is a necessary step to match the flavor profiles of the region.

And these spices play an important role in plov, the signature dish of the nation. Plov is the pilaf-esque rice that features a blend of spices, meat, carrots and onion traditionally made by men in large caldrons. I committed a menu misstep and didn't order the dish. I instead ordered the Kasvar special vegetables, or meatless rice paired with assorted vegetables in cheese. Not the right choice. As my vegetarian husband deftly pointed out, “Meat here would be better.”

Course correcting a moment later, an order of manti came to our table and a side of homemade bread. Manti are steamed dumplings filled with beef, spinach or pumpkin. Our server allowed us to get a mixed order. Served with a sauce that tastes a touch like ranch dressing, these thin-dough dumplings are flavor-rich. Similar dumplings prepared with ground beef and onion can be found in the chuchvarra entrée or in broth as chuchvarra soup. At our table, the pumpkin-filled manti wowed with a slight sweetness. The bread equally enchanted with its flat center and puffy edges. It was crispy on the outside, covered in sesame seeds and fluffy on the inside.

Lagman, another traditional Uzbek offering, features thick noodles in broth with vegetables and beef or chicken, if desired. Heaps of onions, peppers and mushrooms make this a hearty bowl. The broth here acted as a great dipping sauce for the bread.

Traditional Russian cuisine shares some of the spotlight on the menu with the likes of beef stroganoff and borscht. The real standout here is the steamed Russian pierogi — the vareniki. Try the sweet-cheese stuffing and then give yourself a high-five for making excellent choices.

So what exactly can you expect to eat at an Uzbek restaurant? Be a superstar and go find out.

Laura Zorch is one of the food-savvy ladies of eatPGH.com, who contribute a weekly Dining Out column to the Tribune-Review.