The Food

I think my experience with Russian food can be nicely summarized in a few bullet points and an anecdote:

• Dill. Lots and lots of dill. Everywhere dill.
• Cметана. Aka sour cream, aka the white stuff that's also everywhere, unless that white stuff is:
• Mayonnaise. The main ingredient in most Russian 'salads'.
• 'Meat'. As in: this pirogi is filled with chicken, this one with potato, and this one with 'meat'.
• Tворог: pronounced tvorag, also known as cottage cheese, named after a dinosaur who is related to Godzilla (beware the творог, it's in everything). Actually I quite like творог.
• I've dropped two jeans sizes since coming to Russia*. 

And now for the anecdote: When I first came here I tried to seek out some tasty ethnic cuisine, my two favorites being Mexican (the thought of a proper mission sized burrito, possibly a chile relleno one, is literally making me salivate as I type; I've actually never had worse guacamole than I've had in Moscow) and Indian. Several people recommended a chain of vegetarian Indian restaurants with loads of different dishes you order from in a cafeteria-style buffet line. Sounds pretty good, right? Of course this turned out to be Russian-Indian, which meant a large assortment of mayonnaise based salads and other standard Russian fare to accompany the Indian dishes which did, admittedly, contain lots of familiar items. I happily and hopefully snagged myself saag paneer, papadums (each in its own little plastic bag, Russian style), dahl and various other friendly-looking things. Only to be disappointed by the tepid heat, the strange, unaccountably large hunks of undissolved spices, no naan bread, and also a general and quite acute lack of that normal Indian food specialty: flavor. Oh well, I thought. 

The strange thing was that everyone kept recommending the place and going on about how it's one of their favorite restaurants, but even after repeated experiments I couldn't find it to be particularly good, or indeed that excitingly different from the normal Russian offering of generic, bland food. I figured everyone had just been here so long that the restaurant was starting to seem flavorful and exotic by contrast. Then I went back to this restaurant today, for the first time in months, largely because I wanted to see if they had any incense at the attached Indian/health food shop because I figured if anywhere would have it they would (they didn't).** It was popular and bustling as always, even at 4:30 in the afternoon. However, this time I also really enjoyed the food. It was warmish, flavorful, and entirely noteworthy (despite the multitude of whole cloves swimming in my saag). Yes! I thought, I've come on the right day! They've gotten better! Everyone was right, this is a good restaurant! Then, of course, the thought occurred to me that has probably already occurred to you: either the restaurant has actually improved its cooking, or I've been in Russia too long.




*Though, to be fair, I'd spent most of the past previous year drinking a solid amount of beer, staying with friends who seriously know how to cook, and working at a rather sedentary yet hungry-making job.
** I eventually went way out to the only place I've ever found incense in Moscow, and bought some more there.