Chowfind: Chaihana, Uzbek- Tajik, Dufferin and Finch

Chaihana
Bar- Restaurant- Lounge
1000 Finch Ave West
289-814-0019
No, It is not Israeli. It is Uzbek-Tajik

I finally found it. Wow! Gorgeous and exotic décor. A mezzanine as well.
A young Tom Cruise cute waiter; short but built like a gym regular, wide hips. A tall blonde waitress, long, long legs. Both in black. Then the sheep, on the huge TV, in a travelogue. Hot! Hot! Hot!

Uzbeki- Tajik cooking. Very, very nice cooking, refined as these things go in that part of the world, no suggestion of grease or too much salt. Not weird ingredients. No pork- these countries are Muslim.

Today’s lunch at $9.95
1. Soup. Your choice. I chose harcho. Elegantly beautiful. Not a note of harchness in it. This one was beef based.
2. Garden salad. Fine chopped lettuce with tomato, pepper, dill; a large portion. An oil and salt dressing. I added the hot pepper infused white vinegar on the table. Good.
3. Manti, 2 pieces, beef and onion, hold the yoghurt. Very good. The wrapper was exquisite.
4. Kutabi with spinach. For convenience, a crisp stuffed pancake, turned. Very
good.

DeIicious, interesting. I would gladly have the same lunch tomorrow, but lunch changes daily. Look it up on the website.
Lunch is from the menu; of course after lunch it's not the same deal.

Hard to find. I went through all of this.
Finch Ave numbers inconsistently between the north and south side. It is across a couple hundred yards west of Dufferin, north side, across from the Shell station.
Then there is the building. There are three entrances in front. There is a big blue sign, 1000 Finch Ave. Walk in under “Finch” into a big hall. It is to the left.
To the left of the real entrance there is another entrance showing a bank of elevators. Gotcha! Wrong entrance. But you would probably do what I did, go into the obvious entrance which is the entrance to the Friendly Greek, thinking that Chaihana is to the right. (The place is huge!) I went around the corner and into The National Restaurant, which is a big Russian events hall. Someone lead me through to Chaihana. I think that they are used to dealing with the lost.