Russia

This weekend I had the good fortune to find a couple of new restaurants representing countries I hadn’t done already.  A few months ago I searched for Polish restaurants because I was in the mood for pierogis and there was nothing to be found.  This morning I decided to just search for pierogis and I got two hits, one for a Polish restaurant I’ll be visiting later and a Russian place called Babushka’s Pierogi that was just 20 minutes away.  For the record the title says “Russian dumpling” if Google Translate did its job.

The restaurant has only been open a month so everything is new and shiny.  It’s a bit of a hybrid in that you order at a counter then seat yourself and they bring it to your table using plates and silverware instead of paper & plasticware.  They’re also a mini-market with foodstuffs with a Russian theme right down to caviar.

This place doesn’t just seem to be Russian the lady running it is certainly from the area and speaks Russian because she was conversing in what I’m going to assume was Russian with the family who got there just before I did.  Apparently it was their first time at Babushka’s as well because they asked about every single item on the fortunately limited menu.  Once I got my shot at ordering I went with the Siberian pelmeni and a cup of the solyanka soup.

I thought the soup was worth an “as presented” and an “after stirring” photo.  The soup has a touch of tomato giving it the color and as you can see from the first picture a lemon slice, some dill weed and a dollop of sour cream.  Once stirred up you can see the kielbasa and ham as well as olives, potatoes, and onions.  It was quite tasty and is the soup of the day on Saturday & Sunday so if you go in on the weekend do yourself a favor and get a cup.

Now on to the pelmeni.

The Siberian pelmeni are essentially steamed dumplings with a beef and pork filling.  You can get it served with sour cream or butter & chives.  I chose to go with the butter & chives.  Pretty simple fare but there were 20 pelmeni on the plate and it was filling as well as good.  I was trying to get a feel for how the meat was seasoned so I tried some by itself and it tasted just like salted beef & pork mixture, no big deal.  It was kind of the same with the butter, there just didn’t seem to be much there.  Of course the outer part was just as plain as you would expect.  However, when I had a bite of the combined product with some chives clinging on for dear life it was much better than you would have expected from the sum of all the parts.  The light touches on the seasoning and butter really helped the whole.  Definitely would have those again.

Before leaving perused the market and the bottle of kvas drew my eye.  It was obviously a drink of some sort and it had a monk on it and they have a good reputation making drinks like beer & wine so I figured what the heck let’s buy it and try it.

As you can see it is a dark drink and it has some carbonation as well as a very slight alcohol content.  That content is so low it’s considered non-alcoholic but it is there.  I’ve subsequently learned this is basically a fermented drink made from rye bread and the color would depend on the color of the rye bread.  Apparently there are often other things added for flavor and I’d guess, based on the taste, this one used raisins which according to my little it of research is common.  To me this particular kvas tasted like liquid raisin toast with just a hint of fizz.  I liked it but it was kind of weird.

I’d definitely recommend dropping in and supporting this new addition to the Pineville culinary scene.  If you’re a fan of potato pancakes check out the recipe on the Tell Me More page.