Finally, a Manhattan supermarket where the bread has less than 100 ingredients.
Mazal Tov
Went to Tashkent Market this weekend – on probably the worst day and time I could have picked, a gorgeous almost-80 and sunny saturday afternoon, when all the world seemed to be in there to buy food to take to nearby Washington Sq park.
Very glad I went on a full (okay, overfull) stomach, or I would have gone nuts in there.
I came out with a very circumspect, single samsa – the last one on the tray (I’m sure they replenished soon after, as they seemed to be doing with everything). This thing was at least twice as big as the ones at Laghman and Tengri tagh, with a puff pastry-style shell.
But I’ll be back for lots of things. There are the hot and cold prepared foods – from the salads to plov to very legit looking Chicken Kiev that I haven’t eaten since I was a kid. Gorgeous khachapuri and a diet-busting bread section. And a butcher counter with all the cuts of lamb you can’t get at most places, extending to a smoked fish counter with more range of fish than the usual suspects, and a compact cheese counter with varieties of feta but also sulguni and imeruli.
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Forgot pics of desserts and blintzes. Lots of them.
It’s a good thing you went on a weekend because on weekdays they don’t stock enough bread. Also please try this samsa too.
Which samsa is that? Cheese?
I’m going to reserve my cheese consumption quota for the khachapuri.
My guess on the bread is that given the pricing relative to any other similar bread in Manhattan, they get cleaned out.
I didn’t look for honey cake. Did you see it?
Any other pics to share?
Which bread did you try?
I didn’t, but I convinced Mrs. @Dean to buy one of the tiny dark loaves, which they took back with them. Maybe he can tell us how it was.
It is a very dense bread with lots of seeds and whole grains. Sliced thin is better than thick. I can’t wait to melt some cheese with it.
Do you recall the name? I tried the Swiss bread and it’s ok. Not bad for $2. Though I wished they sell more bread rolls for my portion control ,P
There are only 2 mini loaves at that price. The other is triangular. They do have multigrain rolls.
I was debating between Swiss or the triangular one. Tried the multigrain roll (.79) it was ok and actually a bit more salt than the ‘a bit sweet’ Swiss bread’
Return visit to Tashkent, of which I suspect there will be many.
@Garsleat today there were 7 types of the mini loaf — 4 variations of borodinskiy, swedish, buckwheat, and darnitski, plus the triangular grain bread, and 3 types of mini no-yeast bread, 2 of which looked like square pullman loaves. The lady directed me to the darnitski instead of the square no-yeast loaf I had selected, so let’s see.
The weekday selection today seemed a lot wider in some items, though on the hot and cold bars I noticed some things from the other day were missing (eg the sautéed mushrooms, potatoes, and onions). Perhaps they vary the lunch vs dinner selection.
The savory pastries had much more variety today — there was a meat Khachapuri in addition to the cheese one, pumpkin manti in addition to beef, beef vareniki plus the potato ones, 3 kinds of bilyashi that I need to look up, 4 kinds of chebureki, plus various samsa.
A few people were buying plov, carefully portioned with rice, vegetables, and meat.
There were also stuffed peppers, a rice version and a meat version, plus meat stuffed grape leaves, in addition to the cabbage rolls and chicken stew.
The smoked and cured fish section is mesmerizing (there’s also a caviar and roe section) and very well priced. I picked up a tiny assortment box to try some things that were new to me.
Lots of halal charcuterie too, including basterma and pastirma.
And the cheese section, while compact, is quite extensive. I found edam balls, which are hard to come by these days.
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