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Restaurant Review: Pepela
A note about my restaurant reviews: New York City counts many Eastern European restaurants scattered across the five boroughs, most of them ignored by restaurant critics and diners alike. I intend to...
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Skirt Steak and Eggplant Shashlyk
Labor Day’s already over, a week behind us, and you probably think you’re done with barbecues until next year. You’ve spent the past two (three?) months reluctantly pigging out with wrinkled beef...
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Lake Trout and Crawfish Ballotine
A few months back, I reported my giant catch of delicious, bright-orange-fleshed lake trout from Lake Ontario. Although I usually avoid freezing fish, that time I had no choice. This gave me plenty of...
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Buuzy, Buryat Meat Dumplings
On my way to Moldova this past summer, I decided to brave the Russian bureaucracy (the eternal visa schemes) and traffic jams (2 hours from Sheremetyevo Airport) to spend one evening in Moscow. To make...
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Moldovan Impressions: The Wine Caves, Part 1
My latest summer peregrinations took me to the little Republic of Moldova (3.5 million inhabitants). My friends and family asked me, several times and with more than a hint of incredulity, what there...
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Moldovan Impressions: The Wine Caves, Part 2
In my last post, I started reviewing the wine caves of Moldova. There are many other wineries in the country, and Sommelier‘s 2011 article here gives an optimistic but good overview of the rising stars...
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Vepřo-Knedlo-Zelo, a Czech Classic with a Twist
Vepřo-knedlo-zelo — literally “pork-dumpling-cabbage” — is Czech Republic’s national dish, but you’ve probably never heard of it. Maybe because the dish name contains of the most difficult to pronounce...
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Prune and Chocolate Custard Tart
Here’s a recipe that should come in handy for the upcoming holidays. The idea for this dish stemmed from a popular dessert at family Thanksgiving dinners. The original was a plain chocolate custard...
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Restaurant Review: Nasha Rasha
A note about my restaurant reviews: New York City counts many Eastern European restaurants scattered across the five boroughs, most of them ignored by restaurant critics and diners alike. I intend to...
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Smoked Bacon and Birch Vodka
If you read my previous post about Nasha Rasha, you might remember that their flavored vodkas were about the only things worth spending a ruble on. There was a good blood orange vodka, but this hardly...
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The Russian Food Blog
Many of you have probably noticed by now that this is a Russian food blog. But it never hurts to state the obvious once in a while. And to drive my point home, I just bought russianfoodblog.com (note...
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Restaurant Review: Oda House
A note about my restaurant reviews: New York City counts many Eastern European restaurants scattered across the five boroughs, most of them ignored by restaurant critics and diners alike. I intend to...
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Imeretian Cheese, the Gateway Cheese from Georgia
So you want to make your own cheese but don’t want to break the bank buying a cheese press? You don’t want to spend your weekends monitoring the temperature of your milk, or get up in the middle of the...
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Imeretian Cheese, Grape and Walnut Salad
By now, you have doubtlessly made pounds and pounds of the Imeretian cheese I blogged about earlier this week. You must be wondering “oh, what to do with all this delicious cheese?” Brush aside all the...
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Moldovan Impressions: The Food, Part 1
In my previous posts (here and here), I’ve talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly in Moldovan winemaking — probably with more emphasis on the ugly than the good. But what about the food? Is there...
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Deer Hunting, and Eastern European Venison Cheese Steak Sandwich
After the debacle of 2012′s deer hunting season, when I spent 3 days on a tree stand and 3 nights in a tent in the middle of the Adirondacks without seeing a single deer or bear, and eventually rushed...
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Sulguni, Georgian Mozzarella
So you’ve made your 10 pounds of Imeretian cheese and you’ve been eating grape and cheese salad for the past two weeks. You’re starting to regret letting me enroll you in that slow food movement....
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Happy Holidays 2013!
Dear readers, I wish you all happy holidays! I’m leaving for a 10-day trip to Scotland — no Eastern Europe this time, and even my prospects for a Russian restaurant look very slim. But if you’re still...
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The Best and Worst Restaurants of 2013
I feel like I spent all my dinners out eating in Eastern European and other post-Soviet restaurants this year! As is now the tradition, here’s a summary of the places I reviewed, rated on a scale from...
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Abkhazian Venison Loin with Blackberry Sauce and Cheese Polenta
Back when I wrote of my adventures in wild Abkhazia, I talked about shashlyk, spices, cheese, honey, and wine. And of course lodochka (aka Adjaran khachapuri). But there can be more to Abkhazian...
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