Turkmen cooking centres on a handful of dishes done well rather than a wide repertoire. Plov — the Central Asian rice pilaf cooked with lamb fat, carrots, and onion in a large cast-iron kazan — is the cornerstone of any serious meal, and Ashgabat's plov houses are the best place to eat it: cooked fresh in the morning, sold until it runs out, eaten communally from a shared dish. Shashlik (skewered and chargrilled lamb or beef) is everywhere, served with raw onion, fresh flatbread, and a scattering of herbs. Manty — large steamed dumplings filled with minced lamb and onion — are another staple, sometimes served with a soured cream or a meat broth.
Dograma is the dish most specific to Turkmenistan: a slow-cooked lamb broth poured over crumbled flatbread and dried onion, eaten at room temperature. It is the dish of celebration and of ordinary days both, and finding a good version in a local teahouse is one of the more memorable food experiences the country offers. Shorba, a lamb and vegetable soup, is the everyday first course. Fresh bread — non, the flat sesame-seeded rounds baked in a tandoor — comes with everything and is excellent.
The best local eating is in unpretentious teahouses (chaykhana) and small family-run restaurants in the older residential neighbourhoods away from the marble centre. Hotels provide reliable fallback options — the Oguzkent and the Grand Turkmen both have functional restaurants — but the food is blander and the atmosphere absent. Ask your guide to point you toward wherever the government employees eat; the catering for the bureaucratic class in any Central Asian capital is usually a reliable marker for decent, affordable plov.