Background on Russian cuisine and Russian restaurants in New YorkDec 25 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Most people like Russian food, so give it a try.
If you are thinking about going to a Russian restaurant or traveling to Russia, here is some information on Russian cuisine and restaurants in New York: HIGHLIGHTS: Overall, Russian cuisine is reminiscent of French country cooking, but with notable unique features. It is typically heavy on fats and carbohydrates, but older Russian restaurants in New York have altered their cooking to adapt to the healthier western approach to food. Russians like their food sour and tangy; thus, pickled vegetables abound, while sour cream, lemon juice, vinegar, and lately capers, are very common ingredients. Both meats and fish are prominent in Russian cuisine. The most typical side dish, as well as a major ingredient in main courses, is potatoes - cooked in approximately umpteen trillion ways. Another common side dish is buckwheat. Rice is encountered less frequently. FISH: One remarkable Russian specialty is smoked fish, and you simply have got to try it; smoked eel is particularly good. Most Russian restaurants offer a large appetizer plate of assorted smoked fish. Among hot fish dishes, freshwater fish predominates. Having come to the west, Russians fell in love with seafood, and Russian restaurants serve plenty of shrimp, crab, and lobster dishes. Although generally very good, they are not authentic; chefs adopt them from Italian and French cuisines, because traditional Russian cooking has virtually no seafood dishes. MEAT: Russian cuisine incorporates both European and Mediterranean influences, and meat dishes include lamb as frequently as beef, pork, and chicken. One thing you should remember about Russian steak, particularly if you are traveling to Russia, is that Russians like it not merely well-done -- they burn in to a crisp. In Russia, even in upscale restaurants the waiter will not ask you how you want it done. You can ask the waiter to make it rare, of course, but I cannot vouch for the safety of Russian beef which has not been fried to the burning meteorite state; perhaps you should choose dishes other than steak. In New York, restaurants which receive a mixed crowd (Russians and non-Russians) have adapted to western tastes and will serve rare and medium steaks; still, I think French restaurants are a better place to go for file mignon. MUSHROOMS: Russians L-OOOO-VE mushrooms. Russia's favorite mushrooms are chanterelles (lisichki), but other wild mushrooms are very common as well. There are almost as many ways to cook mushrooms as there are to cook potatoes, and many dishes have both. Pickled forest mushroom and mushroom stews are particularly good, but any mushroom dish is guaranteed to please. SOME FAMOUS AUTHENTIC DISHES: (1) Tobacco chicken (tsypliata tabaka) -- this is a Georgian dish, in which young chicks – poussins -- are cut lengthwise along the breastbone; flattened and marinated in red wine vinegar with onions, garlic, and bay leaf; then fried under press and served completely flat. I highly recommend this dish. (2) Julien -- julienned chicken breast, onions, forest mushrooms, sour cream, and cheese arranged in layers and baked, usually in individual portion-sized earthenware pots. (3) Beef Stroganoff -- beef stew with onions, spices, and sour cream. The trick which makes this dish difficult is to let it simmer over very low fire so that the sour cream virtually does not darken in color. (4) Pelmeni – along with its Georgian cousin khenkali, pelmeni are meat-filled dumplings with a thin and tender skin. Some restaurants serve factory-made, generic pelmeni; others, along with a handful of Russian supermarkets, offer home-made pelmeni and khenkali – these are the ones really worth trying. Siberian pelmeni are stuffed with a mixture of lamb, beef, pork, sautéed onions, black pepper, and cabbage (for punginess). Khenkali are stuffed with lamb, sometimes with the addition of other meats, but have no cabbage. Dumplings are boiled with bay leaf and peppercorns, then drained. The proper way to eat them is to sprinkle them generously with ground black pepper and white vinegar, then to top with sour cream. A dollop of mustard is optional. If you order pelmeni in Russia, note that Russian vinegar is 10% acidic – double the kick of the vinegar sold in the States. (5) Shashlyk – simply, shish-kebab, but the Russian (or rather, Georgian) kind is prepared differently than in other cuisines in that the meat – usually lamb – is marinated for hours in white vinegar with onions, peppercorns, and bay leaf before grilling. It has a fine and unique flavor. (6) Zharkoye – literally means "stew" and is usually beef or lamb, potatoes, mushrooms, and spices baked in an earthenware pot. It is simple, but very good. (7)Golubtsy -- cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of ground meat, rice, and spices, stewed in tomato sauce and served topped with sour cream. (8) Ukha -- clear and very tasty fish broth soup with potatoes, spices, and sometimes a small amount of grains, such as cream of wheat or barley. Ukha is a very old Russian dish, mentioned in early medieval literature. This, of course, is but a small sampling of Russian dishes. I also omit such well-known favorites as borscht and chicken Kiev, as well as many regional dishes. WINES: Most New York restaurants serve a variety of wines, including Italian and French. The wines which Russia claims as its own are Georgian wines. I am not crazy about them -- Russians' enormous pride in them notwithstanding, the best of them are a far cry even from the medium-priced French, Italian, and Chilean wines (by medium-priced, I mean around $20-50 a bottle or so). On a scale of 1-10, I would rate the best Georgian wines as 6. Furthermore, Georgia does not produce dry wines, only sweet and semi-sweet wines -- and in my personal opinion, they do not go well with dinner. As for champagne, Sovietskoye (designated as "sparkling wine" rather than "champagne", of course) is pretty good, and represents an excellent per-dollar value. It is not as good as the French Veuve Cliquot, but given the fact that it is approximately five times cheaper, I think it is excellent. Sovietskoye is available from many liquor stores in the New York area and in many places, it is sold out around the New Year's eve. There are also Moldavian wines, which I find inferior to Georgian ones – they are sweet and semi-sweet, flat, and often have a medicinal undertaste. Wines used to be produced in Crimea as well – the region's Mediterranean-like climate and earth are well-suited for the industry. It all came to an end in the late 1980s, when Gorbachev launched his War on Drunkenness. Russia was ever the country of extremes, its leaders freely breaking many eggs for the sake of a small omelet. In carrying out his program, Gorbachev closed Crimean wine-bottling plants and bulldozed many, if not all, vineyards, some of which had been founded by Byzantines over a thousand years ago. Rare vines unique to the region were destroyed and are now permanently lost. A contemporary article in a Russian magazine told of a leading scientist at one of these vineyards hanging himself, having seen bulldozers slaughtering the vines which he had spent his life cultivating. I don't know if Crimean wine-making was ever resurrected, or if there are any pre-Gorbachev bottles still floating around. Crimean wines had a good reputation, but I never tasted any and therefore cannot make recommendations. SOME RUSSIAN RESTAURANTS IN NEW YORK. I must make a disclaimer that I rate restaurants based on the quality of their cooking as a central factor. I think the best Russian place in New York is the Russian Vodka Room, located at 265 West 52nd Street in Manhattan. Their chef is superb – the duck cooked with apples and prunes is particularly good. I also recommend the Moscow sturgeon. In addition to great cooking, the restaurant also serves about thirty flavors of vodka, as the name implies. There is also a piano bar and live jazz on most nights. Most Russian restaurants suffer from a disadvantage in that they combine a restaurant with a night club – and you sit there deafened by the blaring pop music, watching guests jumping and stomping on the dance floor two feet away. Luckily, the Vodka Room is not one of them, and it is a great place to have a quiet and relaxing dinner. The best time to go is on a week night. The place is small – it is, literally, a mere room – and it is very crowded on weekends. Also on weekends, the restaurant does not take reservations. The Samovar, located across the street and reportedly owned by the same family, is also very good, although with less variety on the menu. Every night, there is an excellent singer singing Russian romances to piano and guitar accompaniment, and the whole place as an authentic old Russia ambience. Both restaurants are moderately priced. Tatyana on the Brighton sidewalk in Brooklyn also has excellent cooking and an enormous menu with many dishes in every category. It is a particularly good choice for a summer evening, when you can sit on the boardwalk and watch the sunset. It is somewhat pricey though. Some Russian restaurants are very fancy, but their cooking does not match the lavishness of their interior. I do not recommend the overrated, expensive, and pretentious Lido – its chef is very mediocre, as is its cabaret show.  |
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