Why Tashkent Supermarket Has the Best Hot Bar

On a warm, breezy Sunday this June, with my mom in town, I scored a rare weekend reservation at a buzzy French restaurant in New York City – and had every intention of showing up. Little did I know, all it would take for me to cancel that coveted table was an unforgettable hot bar at a local grocery store chain.

The week that Tashkent Supermarket opened its long-anticipated fifth NYC store on Sixth Avenue, friends and neighbors repeatedly told me how excited they were for a closer location of this Uzbek grocery store. Tashkent, named after the capital of Uzbekistan, has other locations in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and Queens – and finally, the local favorite has come to Manhattan. 

This supermarket offers a diverse selection of ingredients and dishes from Uzbekistan and other Central Asian cuisines, as well as Slavic, Soviet, Turkish, and Western food. 

Like any good grocery store, Tashkent houses a wide selection of fresh produce, dairy products, grab-and-go items, pantry essentials, fresh meat, seafood, and snacks. 

More importantly, you’ll find groceries here that are rarely seen in most American supermarket chains, like Ukrainian farmer cheese, Balkan cheeses, mannaya kasha (cream of wheat), Turkish olives, morkovcha (carrot kimchi), pickled tomatoes, and kaymak, an ultra-thick dairy product similar to clotted cream, to name just a few. I even spotted a Turkish brand of ayran (a yogurt drink) that I grew up enjoying but can rarely find in NYC. 

The seafood department has a vast array of smoked fish, including sea bass, whitefish ribetz, and syomga. You’ll also spot an incredible selection of caviar, and all of the meat sold at Tashkent is halal. But what really prompted me to cancel my dinner reservation was the hot bar.

The beautiful spread of appetizers, cold salads, grilled meats, kebabs, plov (also known as pilaf), dumplings, savory pastries, and desserts — all priced by the pound — had me overwhelmed in the best way possible. What I thought would be a quick grocery store tour en route to a fancy dinner turned into our new meal plans as soon as I got a glimpse of all the options that awaited us.

And so, with a Resy notification thanking me for canceling our reservation in advance, I began filling my food container. I recommend trying a variety of dishes like golubtsi (stuffed cabbage rolls) with beef or chicken, shuba salad (a layered beet and herring salad with a stunning purple hue), borodinskiy rye bread, syrniki (sweet pancakes made with farmer cheese), and chebureki (crispy, fried turnovers filled with beef, spinach, or a potato and mushroom mixture). 

The dumpling table, reserved for a buffet of various types of manti, vareniki, and pelmeni, instantly drew me in. My favorites were the beef pelmeni, potato vareniki with caramelized onions, and the beef manti. If you don’t eat meat, most of these Central Asian and Eastern European dumpling styles also come with vegetable fillings, such as spinach or pumpkin manti.

If you’re a fan of rice dishes packed with spices, vegetables, and meat, Tashkent’s plov station is a must-try, especially considering that this is the national dish of Uzbekistan. The options here include pillowy piles of rice with lamb, beef, or chicken. I found the lamb to be exceptionally tender, and the chicken was delicious and juicy, while the julienned carrots in the pilaf added the perfect touch of sweetness and texture. 

Priced at $9.99 for a pound, the affordable and delicious plov options were visibly the most popular attraction among shoppers when I visited the store.

Although I did use this impressive hot bar to replace my dinner plans, you can also opt for a few quick bites instead of an entire meal. Food & Wine’s senior news editor Karla Alindahao says, “When I’m working from home, I like to treat myself to a savory afternoon snack — something satisfying enough to carry me through to dinner. [And] more often than not, I reach for a lamb or beef samsa from Tashkent. The dough is flaky, the filling hearty. I pop it in the oven for about 10 minutes, pair it with a simple side salad, and that’s usually enough to keep me going for another few hours.” 

Samsas are savory, flaky pastries that are staples in Uzbek cuisine and across Central Asian food cultures. At Tashkent, you can find varieties of samsa stuffed with lamb, chicken, beef, or vegetable fillings. 

Another standout from the hot bar that might be easy to underestimate is the “pasta with beef.” While this dish has a simple name, its subtly sweet flavor combined with savory seasonings make it stand out, and it pairs perfectly with the chicken Adana kebab (also a must-try). Perhaps the pasta wasn’t the flashiest dish I’ve had, but it was the one I kept going back to for another bite.