Kashkar Cafe

"Kashkar Cafe is widely considered to be one of the best places to eat in Brighton Beach and it’s also one of the few Uyghur restaurants in NYC. When you get there, start with a pot of tea and take your time exploring the menu because there’s a lot to try, and you’ll want to try as much as possible. It’s easy to get caught up in the myriad fried, meat-filled appetizers, all of which are good - but the fried manty are the best. Get a pickle plate for some vegetables, then dive into some noodle dishes. Before you know it, you’ll be very full, and very ready to come back." - carina finn koeppicus

"If it’s skyscrapers and traffic noises that put NYC on your sh*t list, Kashkar Cafe is pretty much as far removed from those as you can get. The Uyghur restaurant is in Brighton Beach, so you can combine a visit with some tanning, or a polar plunge, depending on the season. Once the waves have washed away your anxiety, walk a block off the water to Kashkar, where you'll find some of the city's most comforting, reassuring food, like stir-fried, lamb-filled bosu lagman, and juicy veal kebabs. With your stomach full and your soul warmed—by way of cumin, and the YouTube carousel of Central Asian choirs on their TV—you’ll be ready to once again go back to ignoring the nightly wailing of various emergency vehicles. " - sonal shah, bryan kim, neha talreja, willa moore, will hartman

"Living in NYC is expensive, and sometimes exhausting. When you need a reminder of why you love it anyway, head to Kashkar Cafe. Steps from the ocean in Brighton Beach, this Uyghur-Uzbek restaurant serves life-affirming, lamb-centric food, in a curtained space that feels like a refuge. Even the fluorescent lighting is oddly comforting. Eat some reassuringly soft hand-pulled noodles, fried to the slightest char, a plate of petite dumplings in a fat-accented broth that could probably cure the plague, and kebabs that have us looking up synonyms for the word “succulent.” Bring cash, and a group so you can order as much as possible. The scent of smoky meat will keep you company for hours after—a souvenir of one of the best meals you’ve had in recent memory." - bryan kim, neha talreja, willa moore, will hartman, sonal shah

"On New Year’s Day you’ll find a line outside Kashkar Cafe of New Yorkers from across town, carrying tote bags and waiting to cap their ice-cold polar plunge in the Atlantic with one of the most warming meals in Brighton Beach, maybe even the entire city. On the other 364 days of the year, this Uyghur-Uzbek restaurant stays pretty quiet. But whether you come here in winter or summer, dripping with ocean water or not, Kashkar Cafe always feels like a refuge. Tucked behind a tented entrance area adorned with string lights, the restaurant's curtains match the ikat table runners, and even the fluorescent lights are oddly comforting. Most importantly, the food at this lamb-lover’s paradise (steamy lamb-stuffed dumplings, lamb-laden soups, tender lamb skewers) is phenomenal. It’s the type of meal your mind might wander to on a bad day, a good day, and every kind of day in between. photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff Kashkar opened in 2003 in Little Odessa, an area known for its Russian speakers and Central Asian food. The halal restaurant used to be BYOB but isn’t anymore, so start with a pot of tea as you browse the slightly battered and stained picture menu. Small white stickers next to each photo have handwritten, updated prices: one for cash, the other credit. Carry cash, order lavishly, and trust that your server will remember the longest list of dishes, even if they never write a single thing down. Everything is made to order in a kitchen that’s just about visible through a small, arched window in the back. So there’s ample time to settle into your cushioned chair, watch YouTube videos on a TV in the corner, and marvel as a woman hand-pulls a mountain of noodles, and drops baseball-sized dumplings into a fryer. Meat scents attach themselves to your clothes, and every so often, a radiator hisses. photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff Be patient as you at stare at the wiped-clean plates of neighborhood regulars sitting at the other tables. Your time will come, as some pickles from a big jar behind the counter arrive, or maybe some lamb-stuffed samsa, with flaky swirled dough, baked to a perfect golden brown. Many more permutations of lamb and dough follow, each dish with its own delicious difference: a little more cumin here, some dill there, chewy or soft, tangy or sweet. Just when you think you’ve forked your last bite of bouncy lagman, or shoveled the last tiny dumpling into your mouth, you may find yourself—beyond stuffed and more relaxed than you have been in years—going to work on a lamb ribs skewer with the ferocity of a very determined chipmunk. Food Rundown Pickle Plate Start your meal with a plate of pickled cucumbers, cabbage, and green tomatoes, and also one small green chili, which is not pickled but very spicy. Turn to these whenever you need a tart break from the fatty lamb dishes. photo credit: Alex Staniloff Khushang Baseball-sized fried manty filled with herby lamb arrive right out of the fryer, astonishingly hot. Let them sit for a moment, no matter how difficult it may be. Admire them while you wait, golden brown and glistening. photo credit: Sonal Shah Samsa It’s hard to choose between the fried manty and these tandoor-baked hot pockets of flaky dough. Take a few people so you can order both. photo credit: Alex Staniloff Juvova There are about 20 tiny dumplings in an order, which means throughout your meal you can always return to the plate for another one, like an old friend, or your favorite pair of socks that will never get a hole in the toe. They are warm and gentle, stuffed with lamb, and swimming in just a bit of the water they were boiled in, which glistens with fat, and would be delicious all on its own. photo credit: Alex Staniloff Noodles Order at least one noodle dish. Try the hand-pulled bosu lagman first: thick, chewy noodles fried just enough that some of them stay soft, and some have just a slight char. The tsomyan—strips of dough somewhere between a hand-torn noodle and a dumpling—is our second choice. Both are stir-fried with chunks of veggies and tender hunks of lamb. photo credit: Sonal Shah Kebabs We try restrict our usage of the word succulent to descriptions of plants. But we'll make an exception for the skewers at Kashkar. Every kebab, even the chicken, is tender on the inside and singed on the outside—a level of grill-master we thought was only achievable outdoors. The veal and lamb are particularly juicy, and we also like the liver, but the skewer to prioritize is the lamb rib. Each piece tastes like the best lamb chop you’ve ever had, but in tiny-sized rib form. And also better. Polov This is lamb and rice, but it’s also so much more than that. Every place in Brighton Beach that makes polov (or plov) does it a bit differently, and Kashkar’s version has heady spices and lots of carrots." - Willa Moore

"At the end of the B and Q subway lines sits Brighton Beach, one of the city’s most overlooked dining neighbors (its position at the very edge of the city is responsible for this unfortunate reality). When visitors do make it down here though, they can find their way to plates of perfect sour cherry vareniki at Varenichnaya, baklava shipped from Istanbul at Brighton Güllüoglu Baklava Cafe, and an endless array of prepared foods, including rich blintzes, at Brighton Bazaar. The first stop though should be Kashkar Café, serving Uzbeki-Uyghur food rich in cumin, lamb, beef, and noodles." - Emily Saladino, Devra Ferst