At Cafe Lily, the Korean-Uzbek Menu Evokes a Past Exodus

On the plate is a tangle of fernbrake, wild young shoots shading from purple to rust brown to army green, the colors of mulch. In Korean, this is called gosari and often prepared as a small side dish. But at Cafe Lily, a restaurant in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, run by Uzbeks of Korean descent, it comes in a great heap, a shovel’s worth of forest floor.

A cousin to fiddleheads, the fernbrake arrives at the kitchen dried in packets and must be soaked overnight. Then it’s boiled into submission and fried in a quick flare of soy and sesame oil. It emerges with a texture somewhere between softened twigs and grass, and the earthy, mineral flavor of dark greens. Rumors of chile steal through the undergrowth. It’s the most memorable dish at Cafe Lily, comfort found in a bunch of kindling.

Lilia Tyan, the chef, grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital. She is Koryo Saram, meaning that her ancestors were among the Koreans who left their homeland starting in the mid-19th century to settle the far eastern frontier of the Russian empire.

Some fought on the side of the Red Army in World War I. In 1937, under Stalin’s orders, about 200,000 Koryo Saram were rounded up on suspicion of sympathizing with imperial Japan and shipped by freight train to the steppes of Central Asia. They made a life there, planting rice on collective farms and speaking Russian because Korean was banned by the Soviet regime.

Half the menu at Cafe Lily is in Russian, the other half in English. Sometimes orders are lost in translation: Once I asked for a dish called “sprouted soy” in Russian, but what appeared was more fernbrake.

As at other Uzbek restaurants in town, there are shaggy manti, giant dumplings; reliably juicy kebabs; and plov, here a loose, dry pilaf with buried chickpeas, tilting monoliths of beef and a solitary slab of lamb, gleaming fatty side up. Here, too, is morkovcha, carrot strands turned bracingly sweet and sour, a gift from the Koryo Saram that is now a staple of Uzbek cuisine.

Then there is kimchi, mellower than you may find at Korean restaurants in Flushing, Queens, but expansive in its embrace of salt and tang, tasting deeply ripe. And kuksi, from the Korean guksu, a summery cold broth with a huddle of noodles, cucumber and cabbage still crisp, and snaking strips of omelet and beef.

Khe (the K, not quite pronounced, is more like a scrape of breath along the roof of the mouth) comes from the Korean hwe, slices of raw fish. Here basa, a kind of catfish, is lightly cured in vinegar and then assailed by salt, soy, garlic and chile. It’s a thrillingly belligerent ceviche, and tastes like a trick of the mind: like kimchi, with fish standing in for cabbage.

Begodya is long-lost kin to Korean jjinppang-mandu, a steamed bun with surprisingly thin, delicate dough crimped around beef and cabbage. Sundya, from the Korean soondae, or blood sausage, is mottled with sweet rice and as chewy as Japanese mochi. Ms. Tyan, who is Baptist, makes both with halal beef in deference to her customers, predominantly Muslim Uzbek immigrants.

Since she opened Cafe Lily two years ago, most nights find her family gathered here for dinner. Her elder son, Sergey Pyagay, helps manage the books, and his wife, Svetlana Pyagay, and his brother’s wife, Tatyana Pyagay, get up from their meals to take customers’ orders and bus tables, sometimes with their small children tugging at their sleeves.

Décor is minimal: walls bare save for lamps with dangling crystal orbs, carpet and tablecloths in matching crimson. I didn’t notice the disco ball and narrow dance floor until a group of women started shimmying to “Hava Nagila,” sung full-throated by an M.C. with Joan Jett hair. (In warmer weather, Ms. Tyan opens the backyard for celebrations.)

Ms. Tyan treats newcomers with special gentleness. One night she brought u-kyadya, a cloudy beef broth, to my table in a metal bowl. “I help first time,” she said.

Into the broth she tipped seasonings from surrounding saucers: salt, garlic, sesame seeds, bright red chile paste with the seeds still showing (“not too spicy,” she said cheerily), cilantro and arcs of onion. Then she motioned for me to take a sip.

How could something so plain taste so vital? Seeing the change in my face, she nodded, consigned a scoop of rice to the soup’s depths and headed back to the kitchen.