(This venue is closed.) This shurpa was carrying a heavy load.
Spelled with an "e," "Sherpa" can refer to a Nepalese people or to a mountaineering guide (the latter need not be the former); with a "u" (or, if you must, with a "шурпа"), it's a dill-happy soup from Central Asia. Though lamb is the traditional meat, beef is more common in New York, as in the relatively light bowls I've downed at Taam-Tov and Cheburechnaya. By contrast, the beefy shurpa at Café Afsona ($4) bore a sizable slab of meat; a like-sized hunk of potato, plus chickpeas and carrots, hid down below. Also shown: half of the fat-lipped flatbread called lepeshka (75 cents), and a samsa ($2), a baked pastry filled, in this instance, with lamb and onion.
Café Afsona may be hungry for business from large formal events (many seats, wine-dark tablecloths) and casual diners (caddies tucked full of paper napkins); the flat-panel display that screened Uzbek musical performances could cater to both.
Café Afsona
416 Ditmas Ave. (East 4th-East 5th Sts.), Kensington, Brooklyn
718-633-3006
