To awaken the true spirit of the Kazakh: a unique restaurant opened in Turkestan

  On September 24, a unique restaurant Sandyq opened in the tourist "pearl" of Kazakhstan - Turkestan, which specializes in authentic Kazakh cuisine and will become the center of Kazakh gastronomy. Sandyq offers its guests forgotten dishes of national cuisine, lost recipes of nomadic dishes collected from various parts of Kazakhstan. The uniqueness of the restaurant consists in conveying a variety of impressions, exquisite tastes, knowledge and skills in cooking healthy dishes, as well as the ability to plunge into the depths of the sought-after folk traditions. "The idea to open a restaurant arose back in 2016. Traveling around the world, I have not met a single restaurant or cafe with purely Kazakh cuisine. There were no such restaurants in Kazakhstan. As a rule, these were establishments with a combined Central Asian cuisine - and beshbarmak with kuyrdak, and pilaf, and lagman. But we wanted to create something special. We decided to show that the Kazakhs did not have such a meager diet as is commonly believed. We managed to present age-old traditions in cooking and hospitality in a modern interpretation," says the head of the company Ruslan Berdenov. The first restaurant opened last year in Shymkent, and now Sandyq has opened its doors in Turkestan. The menu in the restaurant is designed taking into account regional peculiarities and local flavor. Each dish at Sandyk keeps its own unique history. The specifics of the economic organization of the Turkestan region influenced the formation of a unique regional cuisine, which is the cultural heritage of the country. Suren is a business card of southern Kazakhstan, famous for the combination of meat with smoke, when a whole carcass of skinned lamb is cooked over a fire. The hot southern climate has given rise to a peculiarity in the diet of local residents, recipes in which there are more easily digestible ingredients with the lowest content of animal protein. For example, an Asin dish with the addition of steamed wheat. A special pride of the Sandyq menu in Turkestan was a dish of stewed young lamb - syrbaz. This dish was prepared by nomads for especially honored guests. The meat, along with the head, was sent to the stomach, where it languished for many hours on coals in its own juice. Unlike other regions, in the south of Kazakhstan, in particular in Turkestan, syrbaz was seasoned with wild garlic and mountain herbs, which gave a unique taste and aroma. To awaken the true spirit of the Kazakh, to convey national values to every citizen of Kazakhstan, to revive the cultural code of the Kazakh people through the national cuisine is the main mission of the project. The name Sandyq embodies the grandmother's chest, where treasures were stored, which were passed down from generation to generation by inheritance. Since ancient times, the regions of Kazakhstan have been famous for handicrafts - wood carving, pottery and carpet weaving, zergery and the craft of weary, weaving mats and felting, sewing and embroidery. According to the team's idea, it is necessary to draw attention to the types of crafts that were once widely known outside the country - glassblowing and tannery, individual items and details of which today decorate the halls of the restaurant. Musical arrangement is not just background music, but first of all an educational process aimed at fostering musical taste, reviving traditional heritage, awakening patriotism and spirituality in every listener. Scores of Kazakh kuys are placed in each booth of the restaurant, and those who perform them are given a discount. In the near future, it is planned to open Sandyq in Almaty, and by 2026 it is planned to open 20 more locations in 6 countries. Информация вщята с сайта Tengritravel.kz