Central Asian cuisine is the most widely available kind of food in Uzbekistan. Predominantly non-vegetarian, Uzbek food is a delight for meat lovers and displeasure for vegetarians. There really is very little choice and what little there is, is mostly within soups. Soups are eaten with bread, called lipioshka here, available in a variety of shapes, sizes and seasonings. Uzbeks never cut bread, it being sacred, but always break it.

There is also a paucity of cuisine choices except in Tashkent where you will find Chinese, Korean and Russian restaurants. Otherwise, all over Uzbekistan, restaurants serve the traditional plov and shashlik, and a variety of soups and breads. Plov, the staple dish of rice cooked with chunks of mutton, carrots and turnips, is common to all five Central Asian republics. Shashlik kebabs are skewered and roasted in coal fire, and served with generous portions of sliced raw onions. Shorpa is a meat and vegetable broth, wanton like manti are thick noodles with meat filling, and samsa, widely available at roadside stalls, is a small fried meat pie. Meat in Uzbekistan is lamb, beef or chicken. Chicken curry is usually eaten with soft bread called non.

The most widely available alcoholic drink is vodka. That and tea are the beverages of choice here, and shots of either are on hand at every nook and corner and along the highways at chaikhanas or choyhonas, literally, tea houses. There’s also shampanski, a light sparkling wine, beer, local and Russian, and kefir, which is thick cooling drink made of yoghurt that can be either sweet or salty.

In most of Uzbekistan, life on the streets comes to a standstill by 8:30 at night. Tashkent has few discos and bars but the Navoi Theatre on most evenings has a programme of opera or ballet. There is little or no nightlife in the rest of Uzbekistan.