Food Fun

The title of this posting makes it sound far more than it really is. On a short visit and without knowing Russian it is hard to really get more than a fleeting impression.

When we went to Sergiev Posad we went into a modern shopping centre on the way back to the station. A supermarket there seemed to be little different from in the West. The only major difference was that the fresh vegetable section was much smaller than here and had a limited choice - cabbages, carrots, water melons, aubergine, peppers, potatoes but not much more. I was surprised at how many foreign goods were for sale though at a premium price - a small pack of Lays (equivalent to Walkers) crisps was about £1 and Crawfords shortbread about £8. There was a good meat counter and a large selection of cold cuts.

What was most impressive though was the vodka aisle which would be the same size as a wine aisle in a similar sized supermarket here.

There was a brightly coloured delicatessen shop near our hotel by the Partizanskaya station. It seemed well stocked and featured a bar with a wide range of drinks on tap. We just had a little difficulty making ourselves understood. Despite that they used a English as well as Russian on the signage.

Doubtless GUM would have been a posh place to shop although we did not check this particular place out.

Also in Arbat and opposite My My is Shashlyk Mashlyk a Caucasian restaurant with a terrace. It was recommended in the Lonely Planet and we were expecting to have to pay more than in the cafeteria style across the street. However we were a day away from the end of our trip so were trying to carefully calculate our remaining Roubles.

A shashlik or shashlyk is just another word for a shish kebab; indeed I remember the term from living in Germany where you could get Hungarian shashlik at some 'schnelle Imbiss' stands. This seems to be the speciality of the restaurant and in their extensive menu there are pages of shashlik options.

Inside, not surprisingly, was a large charcoal grill. Our waitress spoke excellent English and gave a good overview of the menu. We decided to share a khachapouri which was a puff pastry stuffed with cheese. We also decided to go for one pork and one lamb shashlik.

The waitress reminded us that what we had ordered was just meat and asked if we would like vegetables. We ordered grilled pepper and grilled aubergine but ended up getting grilled tomato as well.

The khachapouri was tasty. We had often seen pastries for sale at reasonable prices in kiosks but could never understand what was in them. Another time I need to be more adventurous. The kebabs were served with pomegranate and a sauce that seemed to be like passata with either chilli or hungarian paprika and dill. It was hot to the taste though not overly so. The tomato and dill combination was quite different to other hot tasting sauces but worked well.

The vegetables were very small though they tasted fine. The aubergine was like a baby aubergine and the pepper considerably smaller than you would buy in a shop here. At 110 or 130 Roubles per vegetable (~ £2.44 and £2.88 respectively) they seemed expensive. Having said that we enjoyed the restaurant and the food.

Like the Uzbek restaurant, shisha was an optional extra. One thing I did not like about Moscow was the amount of smoking. It seems like 95% of people smoke and I was conscious of being a passive smoker.

We ended up paying more than expected in Shashlyk Mashlyk. We had budgeted for the shashliks at 430 Roubles each, but were surprised at the the vegetable cost. My son paid and said he could not find our waitress and when finding the bill was asked to pay a fairly hefty service charge on top so we ended up paying about 2,850 Roubles having budgeted for about 2,000. We do not know if this was correct but he could not make himself understood to query it.

We had wandered along Arbat one day and had a good lunch at My My (see previous post) but on the way out noticed that there was an Uzbek restaurant next door. We returned to Vostochny Kvartal two evenings later. We have never tried Uzbek food so it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed.

The restaurant had a pleasant street terrace where there seemed to be a fair amount of tourists. The menu had reliable English descriptions and our waiter was helpful. Judging by the menu the food seemed to be somewhere between Greek/Turkish and North Indian/Pakistani. There were starters including vine leaves (rather like dolmades) and samsas which looked very much like samosas but with more like a puff pastry than filo pastry.

The menu included variations of plov the Uzbek national dish which consists of rice, spices, vegetables and meat. Apparently the word plov is related to pilau and pilaf; apparently these dishes have their roots in Bactria and got spread around when Alexander the Great invaded the area. Many of the dishes were prepared in a tandir which must be a word with a similar root to tandoor.

We went for a samsa started which was stuffed with vegetables. It was much less spiced than an Indian samosa but was pleasant. The plov was with lamb and whole garlic cloves, carrots, cumin and probably tumeric; the spicing was milder than say a biriyani but was very tasty. The non bread had similarities with naan and Turkish bread in the sense that it was leavened. However it had a crust unlike the softer naan bread. The plov was served with finely sliced onions with paprika.

We enjoyed the food very much and the bill (including some beers) came to about 2,000 roubles (£44). I recommend this place although I have no idea of how it compares with other Uzbek restaurants.

Recently I went on my first trip to Russia with my youngest son. I had promised him a trip some years ago and a few months ago he said he wanted to visit Moscow. About 3 months ago I managed to find a job so we went ahead and planned the trip.

One of the challenges of getting around Moscow is following Cyrillic signage but thankfully most menus are bilingual with English as the second language. However, some of the translations can be misleading or cofusing. I am not being negative about this - after all which places to eat in Britain offer multi-lingual menus?

We stayed at the hotel - a large 3 star complex on the North East side of the city. The hotel has many restaurants and cafes some of which were reasonably priced in Moscow terms. One breakfast we saw sandwiches on the menu and while 'ham sandwich' or 'smoked salmon sandwich' were clear we were intrigued at 'cheese sandwich with oil'. My son was put off trying it but I was sure it was a mistranslatioon and the "oil" turned out to be butter.

We had to learn that it is very rare for a main course to come with vegetables. Everything had to be ordered separately and even portions of mustard or ketchup are separate line items on the menu (see above).

Another thing to note is that in many cases a menu specified the weight in grams of portions or of key ingredients. In fact the "cheese sandwich with oil" had three figures which seemed to correspond to the weight of the slide of bread, the (4 mm thick) slab of butter and the (20 mm thick) slice of cheese.Generally though you have a good idea of what portion sizes are.

Generally speaking we had been warned in guidebooks that eating would be expensive. Restaurants seem to be geared to tourists and Russian "new rich" and you needed to budget similar money to the UK. In our hotel we had a Russian buffet for about 450 Roubles per head (~£10) which comprised finely chopped salads, pickled vegetables, various hot dishes including stuffed peppers, stews and fresh fruit. Eating a la carte in the hotel cost more than that. Eating out in the Arbat area could easily cost 1,000-1,500 Roubles per head.

Despite that it is possible to find more reasonably priced food even in a popular area such as Arbat. There was one reasonably priced chain called Ϻу Ϻу in Cyrillic which is pronounced "moo moo". As you might expect there is a cow outside. This chain uses a cafeteria format so you queue up with your tray and can choose from a selection of salads, soups, meats, vegetables and desserts; all portions are carefully weighed. A meat portion cost about 130-150 Roubles whereas nearby restaurants charged more like 350-450 Roubles. My My offered the choice of eating in the basement, groundfloor or in a covered terrace area. Our food there was quite tasty and was much better value for money than elsewhere.

On some occasions we were confused looking the the illustrations of food with Cyrillic only descriptions. When I saw the picture above I thought it was strawberries, ice cream with chocolate sauce plus rocket! However I managed to work out decoding the Cyrillic that is was strawberries, marscapone cheese, balsamic vinegar and rocket. Some words are similar to Italian e.g. ruccola for rocket and pomodoro for tomato.

Something that was interesting was the availability of food from other parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Caucasus or Central Asia. We wanted to try some of these places that you are unlikely to find in Western cities. The picture above is of Shesh-Besh an Azeri restaurant on ul Novy Arbat; we unfortunately did not get round to trying it out.