TASHKENT, UZBKEISTAN
One of the benefits of Hilton Diamond status is "free" breakfast. Unfortunately "free breakfast" often means a small meal voucher that barely covers a continental breakfast in many American Hiltons. Luckily that is far from the case here. The Tashkent City Hilton had what I would describe as the best Hilton family (including Conrad, WA, etc.) breakfast. The buffet offerings were vast and included unique options such as a custom miso station. All the food was fresh and the fruit in particular was outstanding.
I think they likely had the best plums I have ever tasted. It was honestly exceptional for a buffet. 10/10.
After consuming the best hotel breakfast I have ever tasted we began our guided tour of Tashkent.
The first stop on our tour was the monument built to remember the earthquake that had absolutely devastating effects on Tashkent in 1966. It is one of the few (only?) Soviet status remaining in the city.
Next up was the Hazrati Imam complex. This site includes a combination of Mosques, Madrassas (Islamic educational institutions), and museums.
Barakhan Madrasah
Khazrati Imam Mosque
Muyi Muborak Madrasah (Library Museum)
The museum has a variety of different copies of the Quran inside ranging from a very large Quran from the 7th century (the world's oldest) to a very small copy the size of a finger.
Following that we visited the largest waterfall in Tashkent.
For lunch we opted to try Uzbekistan's national dish, plov, at the Tashkent Plov Center. The various types of plov were quite good, but I found watching the plov making process to be the best part of the experience.
Nearby is the Tashkent TV tower.
The Uzbekistan State Museum of Applied Art is another museum that cannot be missed on any trip to Tashkent.
On the way back to our hotel we passed by a few interesting buildings including Hotel Uzbekistan.
Hotel Uzbekistan
After a brief stop at the hotel I decided to give the metro a try and go visit the Chorsu Bazaar. There is a metro station about a 10 minute walk away from the Hilton.
As is typical of metros in post-soviet countries the stations are very clean and nice looking. Not quite as nice as in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but still very very nice when compared to basically any station in America. The trains themselves were fairly modern and were quite comfortable for our short ride.
The Chorsu bazaar mainly has food, but there are places to purchase cloths, home goods, and other things as well. The bazaar is quite large and it is easy to get lost, but that's what makes it fun! I will say the language barrier may be an issue if you do not speak Uzbek or Russian. I speak Russian so it wasn't an issue, but if you don't be prepared for quite a lot of Google Translate.
Central Asian watermelon--so sweet!
With a bit of time to kill before heading to dinner I decided to take a look at what the executive lounge had to offer at the Hilton. The lounge was quite empty every time I visited and was stocked with a decent selection of food. However, in my opinion the best part of it was the free bottled water. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to use them to fill your own bottles, but they had quite nice water and Tashkent isn't somewhere you can drink tap so we made use of them
Although I never ended up swimming, I did take a look at the pool.
With only one true day in Tashkent I asked the front desk if they had any recommendations for a restaurant with live, ideally traditional, music.
They recommended a restaurant called Caravan which turned out to be excellent. The atmosphere is wonderful as they have a nice outdoor patio full of trees and greenery. The band they had was also excellent and played a variety of both traditional and modern music.
The food was also quite good. One of my favorite Central Asian dishes is lagman and they had a few different styles that we tried. Both were great. They also serve Georgian dumplings called Khinkali which were good as well.
Lagman
Lagman
Khinkali
Tarragon Lemonade