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Portland used to have an Uzbek restaurant. But those days are over now.
The exterior doors of the restaurant on far east Burnside are locked up, the restaurant stands somber and empty within, and there's a message on the door declaring the restaurant had defaulted on its lease.
In a world where all things absorbed by the Russian political machine are described, simply, as "Russian," Restaurant Uzbekistan was a barebones spot serving the syncretic cuisine owners Vitaliy and Vera Pechenyuk grew up with in Uzbekistan: Asian carrot salad adapted from Stalin-exiled Koreans, dumplings learned from marauding Mongols, and of course borscht, the universal solvent of eastern peoples.
But Restaurant Uzbekistan was also Portland's finest example of a sit-down spot serving eastern European fare by immigrants from those countries, at costs so low one felt almost guilty ordering it. But it appears it did not find enough of a audience.
Here is the message on the door:
Sigh.
Willamette Week
