Well, this is absolutely wild. I had to go for a root canal (of all things, ugh!) in Beverly Hills with Abu, and on our walk afterwards, Abu led me on a truly mystical and bewildering adventure!
Abu was a very good boy during my root canal (sitting in my lap the whole time and even letting us know when we hit the infection site). Abu has accompanied me to dentist appointments in China and America, so he knows the drill (pun intended, sorry). In the photo above, you can see Abu’s empathetic concern right after my root canal — coupled with his discernment as to whether or not I was up for an adventure (always!).
First things first, Beverly Hills chihuahua Abu attended to his business on this lovely street lined with hot pink flowers. Then, to my shock and amazement, he led me to a restaurant set back from the street in a parking lot with a sign that read: “chaikhona” (“teahouse” in Tajik).
I could not believe it — what in the world is a Tajik teahouse doing in Beverly Hills?!? I honestly thought I was hallucinating on anesthesia. For some background, I lived and studied in Tajikistan on a U.S. State Department Critical Language Fellowship to study Persian and Tajik — and I also did field-research there later as an Edward A. Hewett Policy Fellow. So to have Abu lead me to a Tajik teahouse in Beverly Hills of all places was otherworldly — but it gets even weirder!
In the courtyard, I found the Tajik owner having his lunch — and spoke with him in Tajik, Uzbek & Russian to get the scoop on this new Silk Road cafe in Beverly Hills that had just opened! He was like: “Where are you from?” “America,” I said. “But I don’t understand — how can you speak these languages!?!” he replied. We were both bewildered!
And here’s where it gets really crazy. I stepped inside the restaurant and found two of my favorite objects on the walls. First, my favorite wall textile (you can see it hanging in my Yale apartment — I bought in a dusty corner of a mosque in Bukhara that has since kicked out all the textile sellers) — never seen another like it in all my years of wandering the Silk Road and looking for its twin!
Though the owner said they serve Tajik and Uzbek food, it was a Tajik flag I noticed hanging in the restaurant, which filled me with vicarious pride!
My Tajik nationalism was hard to contain, and I flashed back to seeing this giant Tajik flag drape in a museum in Dushanbe while living there.
Now, for the second favorite object I found hanging on the walls of this Tajik cafe in Beverly Hills: my favorite Tajik hat which I’ve worn all over the world! Here I am wearing it in a beautiful Persian garden in Shiraz in Iran! I’ve also never found that hat anywhere else on the Silk Road — was too uncanny to find it hanging in the restaurant! Even the owner was shocked!
I also admired the other Tajik and Uzbek textile patterns on the wall and showed the owner (who has a cafe in Samarkand) some of the dresses I wore in Tajikistan when I arrived and my luggage from America didn’t!
Sadly, because I had just had a root canal when Abu let me to this Tajik/Uzbek cafe in Beverly Hills, I wasn’t able to try any of the food yet, but he told me that I have to come back and try it — my friend and I have a plan to do so this week and I can’t wait to feel like I’ve been transported back to the Silk Road. The Google reviews for Chaikhona Lazzat Grill (https://www.yelp.com/biz/chaihona-lazzat-beverly-hills) so far are great: “Very cozy atmosphere with great food and service! It makes you feel like in Tajikistan 🇹🇯 or any other Central Asian country! They got the best plov in town!” Go and show this new and very unique Central Asian cafe some love — happy plov to you all!
