Laghman Express

Laghman Express in Bensonhurst is a halal restaurant serving the hearty, aromatic cuisine of Central Asia — particularly the Uyghur and wider Turkic-Muslim traditions for which laghman noodles are a signature dish. Laghman itself is a bowl of hand-pulled wheat noodles topped with a rich stew of meat, vegetables and spices, and its variations span the enormous geography from western China's Xinjiang through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and beyond into the Ferghana Valley and Afghanistan. The menu at Laghman Express may feature classic guyru laghman with the pulled noodles in sauce, fried laghman (tsomyan), manti (steamed dumplings), samsa (baked meat pastries), plov (rice pilaf layered with carrots, onions and halal lamb), and freshly baked flatbreads. Everything is halal, reflecting the Muslim identity of the Uyghur, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Dungan and other Central Asian peoples whose cuisine this is. The dining room is informal and welcoming, often decorated with touches of Central Asian culture — perhaps tapestries, ceramics or traditional patterns — and the atmosphere carries the warm hospitality for which the region is famous. Bensonhurst has welcomed a growing Central Asian and Uyghur community in recent decades, and restaurants like Laghman Express are both cultural anchors for the diaspora and windows into a cuisine still relatively unknown to wider American audiences. During Ramadan the restaurant hosts iftars with the distinctive Central Asian breaking-fast traditions — sweet milk teas, soups, bread and the slow-cooking heart-warming stews — welcoming fasters back to the table. Eid celebrations bring family gatherings. For a traveler in New York, a meal here is an essential introduction to a cuisine whose presence in American Muslim dining is relatively new but whose heritage is ancient. The Silk Road carried Islam into Central Asia over a thousand years ago, and the cooking of the region has carried the ummah's influences ever since. Order a plate of laghman, share manti across the table, and taste the heartland of Muslim Eurasia. A meal at Laghman Express connects you to the great Silk Road heritage of Muslim Eurasia in the most direct way possible — through a steaming bowl of hand-pulled noodles.