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Parked in an unassuming Valero gas station in Mountain View is a food truck serving juicy shish kebab and flaky samsa cooked in a tandoor. The food is halal and created by a 23-year-old San Jose State student, Zhibek Zhusubalieva.
Zhusubalieva is from Kyrgyzstan, and she came to the Bay Area to study graphic design. Noticing the lack of Central Asian food in the Bay Area, she decided to start her own business.
“When I moved here, I really missed our food,” she said.
On Sept. 19, Zhusubalieva’s debut food truck, Silq Road, officially opened, offering traditional dishes such as plov, a rice dish with beef and lamb, carrots, chickpeas, raisins and quail eggs ($18.95); chicken and beef shawarma wrapped in grilled lavash ($16.95-$17.99); samsa, a meat and cheese stuffed pastry cooked in a tandoor ($7.95-$8.95); and cheburek, a crispy, fried, ground beef-filled pastry ($6.75).
Zhusubalieva said she learned to cook in Kyrgyzstan and has worked at various restaurants. Obtaining authentic ingredients in the Bay Area has been somewhat challenging, she said, noting that she has to source rice from Uzbekistan and use zigir oil – a dark, viscous and pungent oil – for the plov. Her food truck is outfitted with a tandoor, a traditional clay oven that reaches very high temperatures and gives food a smoky flavor and char.
The name Silq Road not only pays homage to Zhusubalieva’s first name, which directly translates to “silk,” but also represents her larger goal: “to introduce more people to Central Asia food and create a place where everyone feels welcome,” she said, noting that the Silk Road wasn’t just a network of trade routes connecting Asia and Europe but also where people shared food and traditions.
“We have really delicious food in our (Kyrgyzstan),” she said. “I want other people to know that we have such good food, such a nice culture.”
Along the Peninsula, just one brick-and-mortar Kyrgyz restaurant exists: Nursel, which opened in 2021 in San Carlos. Other Central Asian restaurants include Uyghur restaurants Kusan Bazaar in Mountain View and Mrs Khan in Menlo Park. Zhusubalieva describes Uyghur cuisine as generally more spicy than Kyrgyz food.
Zhusubalieva continues to develop Silq Road’s menu and plans to soon introduce manti, which are Central Asian dumplings.
Silq Road, 584 N. Rengstorff Ave., Mountain View; 650-943-8669, Instagram: @silq_road. Open daily from noon to 11 p.m.
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