Almaty Restaurants

My last meal in Almaty before departing was at Princess Turandot's. The place is kind of hard to find located behind the Auezov Drama Theatre and I only knew about it because my colleagues took me there.

We sat on the patio and had a delicious feast of Chinese food. We also had Tsingtao beer to wash it all down. Across the street is the Circus, wished I could have gone there it looked like a large event. In the background you can see the towering snow-capped Tian Shan mountains, beautiful!

The food is very good and the service was outstanding and it was all fairly inexpensive, strongly recommended.

Favorite Dish: I had a Sesame Chicken dish and Tsingtao beer.

This place was great! As you enter you are greeted by Laurel and Hardy statues. The food was excellent and the service was fast.

I had horse milk with over-easy eggs on top of tomatoes for breakfast. Horse milk is very nutricious if you can get past the bitterness and it also has an intoxicating after effect! I added an expresso for good measure.

Favorite Dish: Horse milk with eggs.

There are many restaurants around town where you get a fixed price lunch that are very good. Look for a sign with a price around T250 or T300 ($2), and enjoy. Saves getting ripped of at other joints, and it's a nice local atmosphere inside.

Great meeting place, good for sporting events on the big screen. Irish style with Murphys, Kilkenny, Amstel and Heineken.
Best buys are Amstel @ 300 tenge/pint and locall beer Tien Shan at the same price.

Favorite Dish: Good International Menu and pub grub style food.

Tropicana has two sections, as you enter the left hand side and inside the club are good value but quite expensive by Almaty standards. The right hand section is open 24 hours and has a very reasonably priced menu of both local and international dishes.

Favorite Dish: Chicken Fillet and Pork Fillet Shashlik are excellent as are the various salads on offer.

These small caffes with plastic tables under umbrellas in streets may be quite a fun. Some of them are of average quality, some are great, but all of them are rather cheap. Usual order is a "Shashlyk" (grilled meat on sticks) and a beer for a good talk with your companion. Then another shashlyk and another beer... And another... And so on. ;)

Ask a local friend which one is good in his district this year.

Favorite Dish: Cheapest beer called "Zhigulyovskoye". Delicious if fresh, nothing if old.

fave restaurant is Imperial its a restaurant with a greek and italian dishes, but with a girls dancing orient dances:)
Very cheap as all restaurants in Almaty:)

Favorite Dish: Caspian salmon with a cucmber sause, and tiger shrimps.

The restaurant on the 9th floor of the 5-star Ankara Hotel has a magnificent view of Presidential Palace, snow-capped peaks, much of central Almaty and broad boulevards. Drawback is the often dour-looking foreign business clientele and the price: expect a bill/check for $200 for two for dinner.
The main social centre for the expat community, particularly the fairly strong and certainly fairly loud American contingent, is Capos, on Abaia Prospekt (corner of Seifullina). Any foreigner will be able to direct you there. Evenings, it tends to fill with rather loud, occasionally obnoxious American 'students', mostly 'studying' at the KIMEP economics institute (corner of Abaia and Lenina), after a year of which (meaning, operating 99% in the English language, learning almost nothing about anything and socializing almost entirely in Capos with other Americans) they can return to their affluent American homes, their resumes now proudly displaying their completion of studies in economics, politics, Russian etc in an adventurous 'hardship' posting (and no doubt move into lucrative jobs with international companies, State Department or elsewhere...)---avoid these idiots if you can. Having said that, Capos isn't a bad place for a beer and a pizza. When I was there, the place did a US$5 'all you can eat' lunch-only deal, which my assistant (an English student) regularly took on as a challenge.A good place for lunch is the deli and (summer only) cafe far west on Shevchenko Street. This place is good for quality local and international food. Can't remember exact address: you'll find it without a problem if you take the tram on Shevchenko and look out the righthand side windows. A large pavement cafe after which the tram turns sharp right. Get off there.
Avoid 'Cafe Light' on Lenina. Expensive unsatisfying food for local plutocrats. At least they have a sense of humour: the place is so named because its predecessor was torched after an extortion threat was ignored...The Rachat Palace (Hyatt), normally an unbelievable ripoff (they even charge through the nose for LOCAL telephone calls which are free in Almaty) is actually an OK place for one thing only (apart from business meetings in the coffeeshop at the centre of the huge glass-ceilinged atrium). The brunch (from about 1100 on Sundays only) is a good deal and a regular thing for many expats. USD$20 (1997) a head.