Shirin Cafe

This place is a sleeper. Went in on a lark, the ambiance is OK. However the food is a killer. The food is great. The owners are Uzbek, the food is great down cooking. Do not miss the soups, aromatic, lots of meat veggies and great seasoning. The meats (kebabs) are plentiful, salads are big and well prepared. Owners are friendly and helpful, the home made bread is great and overall I am coming back here again soon, and this time will try the deserts (could not do now because we ordered too much food)

Got takeout last time so thought we would try eating in. Small and cozy restaurant with friendly service.
Everything we had seemed very fresh and well-​prepared. The Greek salad at $ 11.95 is a good value as it will serve four. The beef stroganoff is a favorite and don’t forget to order the freshly baked Uzbek bread.
Server was super helpful and pleasant throughout our meal. Portions are generous. A good place to try for a change of pace from the usual italian and chinese food.
Can be crowded with larger parties on weekends so call ahead.
We will definitely be back.

John, me, and our friends Yuri and Lou did some celebrating at this charming and exotic little café on Route 9. Shirin Café specializes in dishes of Central Asia, featuring grilled meats, pilaf, stuffed doughs and dumplings, and hearty soups. Recipes from Uzbekistan, Armenia, and the Caucasus region are represented. Our goal was to sample as many appetizers as we could without exploding. We waded through:
Uzbek traditional bread (a round, flat, dense yeast bread traditionally baked in a tandoori oven)
Armenian lobio — a kidney bean and herb salad topped with julienne-​cut basturma (dried meat) This was outstanding!
Chuchvara, boiled (small meat-​filled dumplings)
two kinds of Samsa (stuffed flaky pastry triangles), the first filled with meat and the second with sauteed pumpkin and onion (ohhhh my!)
two varieties of Kutabi (a thin round flat dough, filled and folded over, and stuffed with ground meat or a combination of leafy vegetables, onions, scallions, and dill)
Hachapuri — a flaky triangle stuffed with cheeses, scallion, and dill
Plov (pilaf) — an entrée of rice and vegetables topped with sliced lamb
Homemade Kompot (cranberry punch) and hot tea accompanied the meal. Russians, (and I suppose central Asians) often accompany a meal with sweet fruit punch. These beverages are almost always waaaaay too sweet for me, and this one was no exception. I would have to cut this with a lot of club soda to enjoy it, however, John, Yuri, and Lou — all sweet tooths — were as happy as clams. The tea was brewed from loose leaves. My three companions enjoyed drinking it through their cut sugar, while I, not surprisingly, sipped it straight.
Everything was fresh and tasty, with lovely textures, seasonings, and flavors. My favorite appetizers were the lobio, the pumpkin samsa, and both of the kutabi, but I would happily order anything that we sampled again. I look forward to dining here again and trying soup on my next visit.

Uzbek food = new foodie experience so sign me up!
Had a chance to try Shirin Café (and Uzbek food) for the first time and what a nice experience.
Located in a strip mall off of Rt.9, the restaurant is decorated with a lot of Uzbek themed clothing and ornaments that were pretty and not over the top.
Service was very polite and cordial.
Ordered three appetizers:
Uzbek bread was delicious. It was very similar in texture and taste to Turkish Pide bread marked by a crispy crust exterior and airy, light, soft, and pock-​marked interior perfect for any types of spreads and/​or butters.
The Pumpkin Samsa and Hachapuri were both delicious too. The puff pastry on each was so delicately flaky and buttery. Pumpkin Samsa filling of shredded pumpkin and other vegetables was yummy, but the cheese filling in the Hachapuri was wonderful. It was the most delicately pungent (a good thing) spiced goat cheese.
Note that the Samsa and Hachapuri are made fresh to order as our waitress told us right away that each take 30 minutes to prepare, cook, and serve.
Entrees consisted of:
The Lamb Kebab was served on a huge metal skewer, on top a bed of vinegar brined white onion slices, and a side salsa-​like dipping sauce.
Lamb chunks were pretty substantial, but I think a tad more salt & pepper would have helped as well as a bit more grill flavor and a notch lower on the temperature (the lamb was a tad above medium, but I would have preferred medium-​rare.
Nonetheless the lamb was fresh and very meaty.
The vinegar brined white onion slices were delicious!
Beef Stroganoff was excellent.
The slow cooked beef was so tender and beefy. The beef and gravy taste was so reminiscent to that of the Polish Hunter’s stew I’ve enjoyed at Krakowiak (Polish restaurant). The bed of fried potato strings (basically French Fries) were fresh and awesomely soaked up a lot of the meaty stew and beef rendered beef fat (not the most appetizing of descriptions, but trust me… delicious).
Also ordered a piece of the Napoleon. In this case my sister enjoyed most of it, as Napoleon’s happen to be one of the few desserts I don’t like, and she indicated it was excellent.
I also have to mention the Uzbek green tea which was a perfect drink to compliment the meal, as the tea was mild and soothing.
It was served in a very pretty and almost British high-​tea formal style of cubed sugar, raisins, and a sugar-​crusted peanut snack.
Aside from the slight foibles on the Lamb Kebab, Shirin Café is a really solid 4 to 4.5 on my scale.

Food is so tasty and authentic. Friendly family owned place. Great for couples and groups. You must try the Manti! They are worth the wait. The bakhor salad is also really good.
The only thing not so great is that everything is just a little more expensive than it ought to be. At the end it all costs more than it should.

I am very a picky eater when it comes to Eastern European cuisine, since I was born and raised and from the former Soviet Union. The food at this restaurant was authentic, fresh and very flavorful. From our appetizers to main dishes to dessert. I would especially recommend lamb and lyulya kebabs. This is a hidden gem. If you are in the area, you should definitely pay it a visit.

3.5 stars, very authentic. The flavors are spot on and the same as they are back in Central Asia. (Except the bread: Shirin’s lepeshka bread is good in its own right, but lacks the same straight-​out-​of-​the-​tandoor quality it has in the mother country. I can’t expect that here in the USA.) The fried potatoes and pickled onions that came with the herring were surprisingly delicious – crispy and light with just the right amount of salt. Shashlik and plov were solid, if not spectacular. Service was engaging and friendly. I’ll be back whenever I’m in the area.

Came here with the bf who is Russian, we both loved it! He said the food is perfect home made Russian and tastes exactly like his grandma was making it back home!

A very cozy family owned place with excellent food, great service and Uzbek themed décor. We’ve been coming to «Albertik’s» — that’s how we call the place among ourselves using the owner’s name — since it first opened about a decade ago. Albertik did not disappoint then and still keeps delivering amazingly tasty Uzbek food. Every dish is superb, I will just name a few of my favorites: tomatoes with a «secret sauce» and grated cheese on top; grilled eggplant with dill, garlic and parsley; meat and salty cheese samsa; pan fried potatoes (sliced in a form of small chips); green salad (yes, it’s worth mentioning); pickled tomatoes; pilaf (!!!); lamb chalahach; shish and lula kebabs. Get a fresh fruit platter for desert — the fruit is always ripe and perfect, even in the winter; and chuck-​chuck, a traditional Uzbek desert where tiny pieces of dough glazed in honey and hardened to a perfect crisp. I recommend calling ahead as this place fills up quickly, especially on weekends.

Definitely have to go back! Love their homemade Uzbek bread, crispy outside and very soft inside, the way me and hubby both like. Ordered fried chuchvara small beef pork dumplings, actually looks more like Chinese wonton, taste surprisingly good! It served with sour cream, loved it! We also ordered a meat puff pastry and lamb kebab for my hubby, quail kebab for me. The homemade pastry takes long time to make, so it comes up to the table right before the kebab. The pastry definitely one of the best thing they make in the house. But next time wouldn’t ordered the meat one, too much meat, hehe. We ate the kebab first. Loved the marinated lamb my hubby ordered, so tender! Like the way they stuffed quail with lamb, awesome! They serve good size. after all this, we are full already. No space for dessert. Definitely come next time to try the dessert and salad.

NOTE: We generally DO NOT DRINK! So, this review comes from a «sober individual» who has eaten EVERYWHERE from Char in Redbank, to The Mill in Spring Lake, to Fins in Bradley (or Belmar who can tell) to Café Artist in Spring Lake. We constantly strive for new experiences and spend about 1600.00 monthly eating out mostly on the weekends. We like Food, not Booze, and while others may mainly be focused on catching a temporary high, our primary focus is taste, portion size, satisfaction and environment.
Anyway, we went last night at around 7:00pm and the place was packed. We waited a few minutes for a table to open and within 15 minutes we had our drinks and «one of the best breads I ever had in my life» that they serve warm Kind of tastes like a croissant but cut into smaller wedges and crispy on the outside. The butter was ‘real’ too which is important to us as we cannot stand ‘whipped cheap junk fake butter’.
Inside you kind of feel like you are in a Russian restaurant in Moscow. There are various decorations placed throughout that look like ‘Russian things’ and everyone around us was speaking Russian. The noise level was fine contrary to what one of the single male critics posted and aside from our own 2 girls, there were no kids in the place. We don’t mind kids as long as they act like ours meaning, nice and quite and respectful of others and ME!
It is not often that we eat at a place that we do not find at least 1 or 2 issues with the food. The food here was excellent. Every dish was loaded with seasoning and spices and cooked perfectly. We had 2 filets and 1 lamb kebob, 2 bowls of unreal and delicious homemade soup, a large Greek type salad loaded with feta style cheese, vegies and rice. Even the rice was excellent kind of tasting like sushi sticky rice but at a way better quality.
Once we started eating, we could not stop! The food is really fantastic. Even the desserts were fresh and homemade, and really good.
The servers were all Russian with 1 speaking fluent broken English and the other ‘trying’ real hard to understand everything we said, which was really cute.
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Between servings the servers constantly removed used dishes and reset our table for each every course. Really nice place and of course we will be back!
Total cost for 4 people eating full meals, ordering a huge salad, 2 appetizers and 2 soups. (our kids don’t eat ‘kids’ food) with 2 extra desserts as takeout ran us 190.00 and we left a 40.00 tip.
Insider tip: We were going to order one of their pastries filled with pumpkin but the server said that they take about 20 minutes to bake so we skipped it. If you want to try a pastry, count on waiting a little for the pastry.
Ps: This is a BYO and everyone was drinking wine (Except us).

Family owned and operated Russian/​Uzbek restaurant located in the back of the strip mall next to the Avanti spa and across from Konbu Japanese restaurant.
Restaurant has an old world atmosphere with television shows of Russian dance and music.
Owners and staff are very friendly and attentive.
Love the food! Great soups, salads and shish kebab! And don’t forget their homemade desserts!
It is so worth trying to find this place. I guarantee it’ll stay on your list and you will return.

Great food. We had a party of 6. Ordered hot and cold appetizers. Logman soup was delicious. Pork shish kabob was made to perfection. Lamb was tender. Not one of the dishes was less then 5 stars and all of us loved the food

This unique restaurant offers a memorable dining experience at a good price. We went last Saturday night and were warmly welcomed by Lana our server, and seated immediately. She guided us through the entire menu. We started off with a circular bread presentation topped with black sesame seeds. Not sure how this bread is prepared, but it was addictive. Similar to the consistency of popovers but more flavorful. Next came the Rendezvous salad… this consisted of numerous vegetables along with beets and some mayo, which was mixed and served at our table. Very rich and throughly enjoyable. Pierogis followed, and then some kebabs with rice and house special potatoes. These are cut wafer thin and cooked in dill. Outstanding. Homemade deserts concluded our meal along with Uzbek tea, which seemed like black tea to my impression.
The room is not so large and is decorated with numerous scenes from Uzbekistan. Video monitors play music videos from various international performers, most of whom show off wads of cash and luxury cars. What I feel really set this place apart for me was the skill in preparing the food, and also the friendly and considerate treatment we received from the entire staff, including the owner who came out to personally welcome us. Take out is available and we will definitely return.

I’ve been here three times by now and have loved it each time I’ve gone. Coming from a Russian family (half of which specifically hail from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan), I held a high standard to this place with respect to babushka’s cooking. The service, in particular, is your traditional Uzbek flavor: very hospitable and friendly. Lana (I believe that’s her name), the vibrant redhead, graces her way to each table with a smile. It probably also helps that I speak Russian and my knowledge of the cuisine has her constantly questioning whether I am Uzbek, but regardless, she really makes a table feel at home.
For appetizers, I would definitely recommend the meat samsas (I tried to be «different» my first go with the pumpkin and wasn’t very satisfied), achuchuk salad (a spicy tomato and onion salad), traditional lepyoshka (Uzbek naan bread), chuchvara (Uzbek dumplings; we ordered them fried and while they were really tasty, I was saddened I didn’t get a giant helping of sour cream to dip them in), manti (a larger Uzbek dumpling that has an amazing mix of cumin spices with lamb and onion inside with a beautifully delicate dough outside; be sure to order them at the start as they take at least 40 minutes to cook), kutubi (traditional Azerbaijani savory pancakes), and khachapuri (a traditionally Georgian cheese pastry, but their version presents an interesting take with tarter cheeses and spices). I’ve tried their eggplant caviar («ikra») and it was just ok (lacked salt in my opinion). Also, the rendezvous salad, while an extravaganza for the eyes to watch how it is prepared before you, is also just ok.
Uzbeks are known for their tasty soups and Shirin definitely delivers. In particular, their lagman is amazing (even better than babushkas) with the tastes of cilantro and the thick noodles creating a journey through the Silk Road. I also particularly liked the Mastava, which is a spicy lamb soup.
For entrees, I always order the delicious lyulya kebab (ground lamb) which comes on a hot skewer to be enjoyed with deliciously spiced and slighty sautéed onions. The real superstar, however, is always the potatoes. I don’t know how they get them to be so thinly sliced or fried so perfectly, but everyone I’ve taken here always remarks on them. Combined with plenty of garlic and dill, they’re a real treat. One negative I will say, and it’s a big one for an Uzbek establishment, is that their plov, the pride and joy of this ethnicity’s cuisine, is mediocre. The meat is dry and the rice a bit undercooked. The flavors are there; texturally, however, it’s a miss.
For dessert, order their Uzbek teas (both the black and green varieties are great). I particularly loved their honey cake and the sugar powdered chickpeas (sounds weird but tastes delicious).

Random choice for delivery but my gf and I had heard good things about this place, but were too lazy to make the 5 minute drive so we went for it… delivery was quick and the food was great. Highly recommend!

My family goes to Shirin Café quite often. It is worth the 45 minute drive from the Princeton area! Sveta is so pleasant! She remembers us and asks us for an update to our lives each time we come. I haven’t tried anything here that I didn’t love. My favorites would be the Rendezvous salad with warm Uzbek bread, the Mastava soup and any of the entrees! The pilaf is well made and the shishkabobs are always delicious as well. Come on an empty stomach! This place fills you up and you’ll want more and more food!

A HUGE thank you to the previous reviewers who clued me in to this fabulous restaurant! Located in a small strip mall, this friendly little spot has some incredible and freshly made-​to-​order home cooking. Truly fantastic! Great homemade desserts too!

My wife and I just ate here for the first time. Sadly, my wife doesn’t want to go back.
Everything we ate was good, although the touted cranberry drink was indistinguishable from cranberry juice cocktail, except for a few tart berries lurking at the bottom.
The service was friendly, but not up to dealing with the full house they had and a big delivery being prepared, so we did not get to have any of the grilled specialties. The bread, pirogies, borsch, etc were all fine.
Unfortunately, the noise level from the group tables and the little children whose parents allowed them to run around, shriek, open and close the front door, etc ruined it for us. It’s not the noisiest restaurant in the area, but the food couldn’t overcome the din.
Maybe delivery or takeout will be the way I get to have more of the really enjoyable dishes, sigh.

This place is in a random strip mall in the middle of who knows where but the food is amazing and the 40 min drive was well worth it.
First they give you this flat circular bread which is delicious and crispy and topped with toasted sesame seeds. Try not to fill up too much on this because there is much more deliciousness to come.
Next we ordered the pumpkin samsa which was absolutely heavenly. I expected the samsa (pretty much a samosa but with a thinner, flakier crust) to be sweet but the pumpkin was savory and there was what seemed like sauerkraut in it as well which only added another layer of depth to the flavor. I have never tasted anything like it and I will definitely order it again when I come back here.
Next we ordered 3 main dishes — the ground lamb kebab which came with thinly sliced onions which were marinated to perfection, the spring chicken which looks and somewhat tastes like Korean fried chicken, and a yellow rice dish with lamb on top whose name I can’t remember. All entrees were cooked perfectly. Overall, I was really surprised to find a mom and pop restaurant in a strip mall that produces dishes that contain so much flavor and depth. I’ve never had Uzbek food before but I will definitely be coming back here for some more dill. They love dill… and now I love dill.
And best of all, it’s BYOB.