On April 5, 2022, at Maryland’s best Uzbek restaurant Silk Road Choyhona, we hosted Uzbek-American GM Timur Gareyev, the “Blindfold King” who once played a world-record 48 simultaneous blindfold games.  For almost all of 2013, GM Gareyev was the third highest-rated American classical player, next to Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky.  We brought GM Gareyev a taste of his homeland, as we enjoyed amazing Uzbek food such as plov, beef tongue, dolma, borscht soup, mastava soup, kabobs (lamb, chicken, and beef), homestyle potatoes with mushrooms, dolmeh bademjan, chicken tabaka, naan, green and black tea with lemons, and Turkish coffee.  Against the beautiful backdrop of a traditional Uzbek tapchan,  GM Gareyev graciously played blitz and blitz blindfold-handicap games against us.  The restaurant managers and employees (Uzbek Americans from Tashkent and also chess enthusiasts) also took pictures with GM Gareyev.