Joining the Karavan
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👋 Zachery here. I'm coming back to you from another strip mall food gem.
- The occasion: Uzbek food in honor of Uzbekistan playing its first-ever game in the World Cup today.
State of play: Located in a strip mall off U.S. 401 on the edge of Garner and Raleigh, the Uzbek restaurant Karavan can be hard to spot at first.
- That's because the restaurant shares its space with a pizza place called 3 Olives. Enter the front door, and you'll be handed two menus: one for pizza and subs and the other a dispatch from the steppes of Central Asia.
Zoom in: Today we're choosing the central Asian experience and a menu both dominated by traditional Uzbek meals — heavy on grilled meats and dumplings — and a confluence of dishes from the former Soviet Union, like khachapuri from Georgia and the Ukrainian soup borscht.
What we got: I leaned heavily on the menu's encouragement to order plov — Uzbekistan's national dish — which combines a bounty of rice strewn with sweet carrots, tender lamb, chickpeas and raisins.
- The dish is an excellent harmony of sweet and savory.
- On the side we got manti, a delicious central Asian take on dumplings that can be fried and steamed.
- And for dessert: we went with medovic, a Russian honey cake made of stacked layers of sponge cake, honey and condensed milk or sour cream. It has the texture of tiramisu but with a caramel sweetness.
📍 Location: 1493 Garner Station Blvd.
🗣️ Let us know which hidden gem we should go to next.
