Tandoor ovens enhance the unique flavors at Asian Cafe and Bakery

The Asian Cafe and Bakery is not what one might expect from its name. Instead of the more familiar flavors found in Pacific Asian countries, the cafe serves cuisine straight from the heart of the continent, including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Walk into the tiny restaurant and the inviting smell of baking lepeshka, a traditional Central Asian bread, welcomes diners. The bread and savory pastries called samsa, a flaky crust filled with beef, onions and spices, are baked each day in one of the restaurant’s two tandoors. Andrey Chumov, along with his family and business partners Nurkyz Bapayeva and Batirkan Samarkanuly, opened the cafe and bakery earlier this year at 3329 E. Sprague Ave. The dining room is dominated by a dome-shaped tandoor oven, flown from Uzebekistan to the United States and then trucked from New York to Spokane. Beautiful, earth-toned tiles conceal the oven’s thick clay walls. The alternating interior layers include a three-inch portion constructed of clay mixed with camel hair, says Chumov. All told, the tandoor walls are nine inches thick. Diners who take a moment to peek inside might see round marks where the samsi are baked. Bakers reach inside the preheated 500-degree gas oven to stick the pastries to the curved interior walls. The oven temperature is reduced to about 360 degrees and the samsi bake in about 15 minutes, Chumov says. Long tools are used to reach into the oven and scrape the pastries away from the oven walls and into a basket. They are served with a spiced, tomato-based sauce for dipping. Samsi can also be ordered for takeout. Triangle-shaped samsi made from the same ingredients are also sold, but those are not baked in the traditional ovens. Each day before the ovens are used, Chumov says, they are cranked up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to clean the walls of dough from the previous day. A second and larger tandoor in the kitchen is used to bake lepeshka. During a recent visit, one could look into the kitchen to see the cook flattening bread dough into a large circle and then ducking his head into the oven to place it on the walls of the tandoor. The bread emerges with a golden-brown crust and pleasantly chewy interior. It is served with many entrees or separately for those who want more. Chumov was born in Siberia but moved with his family to Central Asia with many other Russian families seeking a better growing climate and steady food supply. “Food was number one in thoughts. Feeding people was a big problem,” he says. He immigrated to the United States in 1992 when his parents and siblings, along with their families, were granted refugee status for religious persecution under the Soviet regime. He and his wife, Iya, came to Spokane, while other family members were settled in Sacramento, Calif. Chumov and his business partners, who are from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, had been dreaming about opening a restaurant for a decade. He says the original idea was to just have a bakery, but they settled on serving other dishes from Central Asia. “We missed this food and our friends missed this food,” says Chumov. Other dishes served include skewers of marinated meat called shashlik. The tender meat is served with a vinegar sauce and onions, $3.99 to $4.89 per skewer. Plov is a rice dish originally from Uzbekistan served with spiced beef, carrots, onions and garlic ($4.99 small/$5.99 large). Larger takeout portions are also offered. Lagman ($5.99) is a beef broth with noodles, meat and vegetables. Shorpo is a Central Asian soup with lamb or beef broth, meat, potatoes and vegetables ($4.99). Large steamed dumplings called Manti are stuffed with beef spiced with pepper and cumin, along with onion. They are served with sour cream ($5.49 for four dumplings). The Tsiplenok Tabaka ($11.99) is a whole hen, marinated and then cooked under a press to give it a golden crust. It is served with potatoes or rice and sour cream. Chumov says ordering this dish at a restaurant in Russia was a sign of wealth. He and his wife, Iya, missed the flavors so much they ordered it five days in a row at a Central Asian restaurant during a trip to Chicago. Traditional salads are served, including a fresh salad of tomatoes, cucumber and onion with dill ($2.49) and a delicious spiced shredded carrot salad ($2.49). Desserts are homemade, including cream puffs with berries ($3.49 for three) and bakalava ($2.99). The restaurant offers a traditional group seating area where diners sit at a low table for their meal, called a topchan. Some call ahead to reserve the area and Chumov has plans to build another to accommodate more people. Many who have discovered the Central Asian Restaurant and Bakery are from countries in the former Soviet Union, drawn by the neighboring Mariupol Deli and Bakery. Some customers come seeking dishes from Pacific Asian countries such as China and Japan, but Chumov says many stay to try the food and they’ve won many of them over. Americans are discovering it as well. The restaurant is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is closed Saturday, the day the Chumovs recognize the Sabbath. Reach the restaurant at (509) 533-2791.