Opened in October 2009, the Gallery Cafe is the newest foreign-run cafe in Kashgar. We would like to extend a very warm welcome to travelers of every kind. Since we ourselves have come to Kashgar to explore and soak in an authentic Central Asian experience, we are happy to help you do the same. We offer home style food and drinks and a comfortable atmosphere for you to rest while you plan your next adventure. We also provide reliable tourist information and can book tours and tickets with experienced local guides and travel agencies. Last but not least, our gallery is here to showcase the talent of a variety of artists, which we welcome you to enjoy. Feel free to contact us with any inquiries about Kashgar (map) or the surrounding area. Soon after we opened we enjoyed the visit of CBS news correspondent Terry McCarthy. Here is his report on the silk road.
Do you have real coffee?
Once, a few months ago a local Kashgar visitor came to our cafe. He wanted real coffee. However, he took one step into our cafe, saw our grinders and expressed his utter disgust "you use those pathetic lowly grinders? how can you make coffee with those grinders? There is no way you can make real coffee with those grinders." He then refused to even taste any of our coffees and ordered hot chocolate instead.
The contrast was the tourists that visit Kashgar, who generally walk into our cafe, take one sniff of the coffee aroma and say "ohhh...real coffee, we'll take two of those"
When we met a tourist on the street he inquired "do you guys have real coffee? is there real coffee in Kashgar?"
we hesitated to answer "well, i mean, our grinders...well..."
"Oh you grind the beans first? Ohh we are coming there for sure. We are really missing real coffee"
Yes, that's right we serve freshly ground coffee in Kashgar. First we grind it, then we brew it with either a drip coffee maker, a french press or an italian coffee maker. It all depends on how strong you would like it. We even serve a sea salt coffee (in the dessert city of Kashgar), which as our customers are finding out, is surprisingly addictive.
To a certain local Kashgar resident, our coffee is primitive. However, I believe the majority of people sympathize with our customers who walk in wide-eyed after touring Kashgar and say "I need a coffee"
When we ask "which one?" The answer is something like "uhhh, ermm, well uhh this one..uhh. Yah, this one."
