If you are squeamish about eating horse meat and drinking horse milk, then you should probably give Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia a miss. If though you have the moxie, then you should have a bash at beshbarmak.
To cut a long story short, this is boiled horse meat laid atop big fat Chinese style noodles. And not only is beshbarmak damned good, but it is also the national dish of Kyrgyzstan.
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What the beshbarmak?
Beshbarmak literally means “five fingers,” a nod to the traditional way nomadic Kyrgyz people ate it with their hands. It comes from the horse-based steppe culture of Central Asia, where survival meant using every part of the animal.
The dish is basically boiled horse meat (sometimes lamb or beef) cooked for hours until tender, then chopped and laid over wide handmade wheat noodles. The same broth, called sorpo, is poured over the top with softened onions. It is the national dish of Kyrgyzstan and is served at weddings, funerals, and major family gatherings.
How does it taste?
With beshbarmak they basically boil the horse meat and then finally cut it, before laying it on the noodles, which are boiled in the same broth as the horse meat. This is the main source of flavour.
Now the noodles! For context the noodles are long, flat wheat variety and are similar to Xinjiang laghman (拉条子, lā tiáozi), hand-cut noodles (切面, qiēmiàn), or even the infamous bang bang mian (棒棒面, bàng bàng miàn). This means proper big hearty wheat noodles, not just thin pasta crap.
Therefore what you get is a really hearty carb-filled meal which has the essence of horse, but is also relatively plain. To sex it up though you can add a bit of Laza (лаза, lazajan), a fiery Dungan and Uyghur style chilli and garlic paste. And you know what, it just works great as a kinda Chinese/Kyrgyz fusion dish.
Where can you get beshbarmak?
This is quite literally the national dish of Kyrgyzstan, so you can get it in almost every restaurant. This means everything from cheap canteens and local joints to upscale tourist and foreigner friendly restaurants.
And it is damned cheap, costing around 250 to 400 som ($3 to $5) in a cheap canteen, 500 to 800 som ($6 to $10) at a normal restaurant and 900 to 1,500 som ($10 to $17) if you want to go high brow.
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