Well, you guys were not exaggerating.
Most reviews here contain a warning of the subpar service at Chaihana, but I figured it had to be blown out of proportion.
It wasn't.
We arrived right at noon on a Saturday and the place was empty. I mean, completely empty. There wasn't a customer or staff member in sight. After standing around for a few minutes, we noticed that someone was arranging cutlery behind a curtain in the back, so I walked over and asked if the restaurant was indeed open. The guy looked supremely annoyed by this interruption, grabbed a couple of menus, and told us to sit where we wanted. We did and he pretty much threw the menus on the table and went back behind the curtain.
Not the best start to the meal.
Our surly waiter returned a few minutes later to pour us some water and take our orders. I decided to go with the Pilav ("Ancient traditional Central Asian meal prepared with lamb, round rice, carrot, onion, peas and barberry"), to which the waiter asked if I wanted one or two. Baffled, I said one. Why would I want two plates of food?
The food arrived about 10 minutes later and it was good. The meat was very soft and flavorful, while the rice contained some spices I couldn't quite identify but which were pretty tasty. But the dish had been cooked with an almost overwhelming amount of oil, to the extent that the plate was practically swimming in grease. Needless to say, I felt quite full afterwards.
It was an interesting meal that I don't regret eating, but that horrific service and overly greasy food preparation means I'll never return.