What to eat in Kazakhstan?

It is hard to describe the food. Let me say we have not found anything we totally dislike. And only one place had exotic meat. It was good it taskes like a gamey roast beef. Chris ate it as an appetizer and as part of his main meal. He liked it. Yes it was horse meat. They breed them for food. What can we say when in Kazakh do as the Kazakhs do. Barbara could only take a nibble. She didn’t want to eat Mr. Ed for lunch. We have not ventured out much for dinner. Our coordinators fear for our safety. They don’t want us out after dark. Our Translator Raushan, lives in town and walks around after dark with no problem. But she is worried that the two of us could not be able to handle the ‘big city’. We feel completely safe. Heck we are world travelers. We have gotten caught many times. She has called to check up on us. She even called the hotel restaurant because we didn’t answer our hotel phone. Then once we went to the internet café after dark and who walks in but Raushan. Busted again! Well back to our food. We have only eaten dinner in the hotel restaurant. Usually beef goulash or chicken leg/thigh with a tomato and cheese melted over it. Or chopped steak. We could really go for a big juicy steak or even spaghetti and meatballs, but we have not seen it available yet. For lunch we have been having a lot of pizza. It is good. We usually have chopped meat and veggies on the medium pizza for two. Sometimes we just point to the picture on the wall and see what we get. All the salads we have had have been great. Lettuce, cabbage, ham, and wonderful tomatoes. The mayonnaise is a little sweet and very good. They also have this great vinaigrette dressing that Barbara is dying to figure out so she can make it at home. When we went out for breakfast we had thick ham, like a thick pork roll and Barbara has had rice porridge. We can’t read the menu and that is all we remembered from our menu review with Raushan. So now we have yogurt. We’ll go back the ham once or twice more. With the breakfast they also have this kafeil(?) an unsweetened yogurt type of dairy product. The kids eat this too. We didn’t like it until we put it over jam on bread. They don’t have much milk just cream and this kafeil. I would not say we have lost weight. The portions are perfect; not too much and we have not been starving. They do not serve big meals in Kazakhstan. Chris wrote this I am sure Barbara would have been more elegant when it came describing her passion…cooking.