Sunday, January 3, 2010

The restaurant at the corner of Kennedy and Northside drives has been known by various names and featured several menus over the last few years, but none as diverse as its current incarnation, Kennedy Cafe.

Open since September, the cafe offers an eclectic mix of Uzbek and Turkish food, in addition to more commonplace American, Cuban and Italian dishes.

The restaurant's owner, Shukhrat Rakhimov, hails from the Republic of Uzbekistan in Central Asia. And while the island of Key West overflows with restaurants offering Italian, Greek, Thai, Japanese, Cuban, Mexican, Chinese and Colombian dishes, Rakhimov saw a niche that had yet to be explored with food from his native country.

"Why not here?" he said. "Key West did not have anything like this."

To continue to attract many of the locals who frequented the cafe when it served primarily Cuban food, Rakhimov kept some Cuban dishes on the menu -- he learned to cook them from friends in the local restaurant industry -- and added Italian dishes inspired by his days working at New York Pasta Garden on Duval Street and operating the former Bogo's on Truman Avenue.

His goal is to get people in the door for food they might be more familiar with, and then entice them with pictures and samples of the Uzbek dishes.

"I can get them to try it and they switch over," he said, adding that his strategy is working. "So far in three months, we are doing like really good," he said. "I see some people coming three to four times a week."

It's already become a weekly stop for a 25-person breakfast club that meets there, he said, and the cafe is a popular lunch choice for employees of the neighboring businesses.

Rakhimov said he hopes to eventually trade some of the Cuban and Italian dishes for more traditional dishes from his homeland and Turkey once he develops a large enough following.

As business picks up, Rakhimov also hopes to gradually incorporate more traditional decor to match the cafe's decorative blue plates sent from Uzbekistan. Right now, the potted palms and wall-sized mural of the Cuban countryside left over from the restaurant's days as Conga's Cafe are somewhat at odds with the white tablecloths and tabletop picture placards of Uzbek dishes written in Central Asian calligraphy.

Rakhimov's idea to add Turkish dishes arrived during a daylong layover in Istanbul during a trip home earlier this year. He noticed the food was similar to and would work well with dishes he was familiar with in Uzbekistan, but there were some different dimensions to it.

Among the Uzbek offerings are three different kinds of kebobs and a pilaf of yellow rice, chickpeas, raisins and carrots.

"It's not just yellow rice," Rakhimov explained. "It's our traditional Uzbek food. We could eat it every day."

Many of the dishes are cooked with aromatic combinations of cumin, coriander, basil and dill.

One of the most popular options is the shwarma, a sandwich of lamb, tomato, garlic sauce, cucumber and onion.

"It's like a gyro, but it's not on a pita," he said. The sandwich instead is served on a round, traditional Uzbek bread, called nan, which is made in a clay oven at the restaurant "We cook it here every day, every morning," he said.

Rakhimov also makes from scratch the noodles for the homemade beef, noodle and vegetable dish, called lagman.

Then there's the pelmini, a homemade tortellini topped with sour cream, and meat dumplings called manti.

Aside from providing flavorful dishes, Rakhimov's other goal is to provide value. The Uzbek/Turkish dishes range from $7.95 to $13.95, and the portions are large by most anyone's standards.

"I don't let people leave here hungry," he said. "Always they have a box to go with them. Rarely do they finish it all."

All the dishes come with a side of the Uzbek bread, and many come with side salads of tomato, cucumber and basil.

Rakhimov said it's not uncommon for people to fill up on just the bread "because the bread is so good and they keep eating it."

Despite his success, Rakhimov admits that owning an Uzbek restaurant is something he never saw himself doing.

"I didn't think I was going to do this at all," he said with a laugh. In fact, before coming to Miami seven years ago for a summer study program, Rakhimov was studying international economics in Uzbekistan. But he saw more opportunities for prosperity in America, and decided no to go back. Shortly afterward, a friend convinced him to move to Key West.

Living on the island is a huge departure from his homeland, which is one of only two counties in the world that is landlocked by other landlocked countries -- meaning none of them are bordered by open bodies of water.

Uzbekistan also experiences four seasons much like the northern half of the U.S. However, the topography of the country, which is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south, is an interesting mix of mountains, plains and deserts -- quite the opposite of tropical Key West.

amswary@keysnews.com