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Alina, what was in the filling for the pelmeni? Your discussion of kasha made me think of kasha varnishkes. Are you familiar with them? They're basically buckwheat with onions and bowtie pasta. Is something like that part of the Muscovite diet lately?

So, the blintzes are crispy, but how fatty are they? Those very buttery blintzes at Ukranian East Village really harmed my stomach.

FFB, post links to your photos on Flickr.

I'm interested in her answer, too, though it looked to me like that restaurant showed items in Russian and Italian, not English.

Is that $45 menu offered on weekends as well as weekdays?

Great photos, John! Wonderful post. I don't know what everything tasted like or precisely what the textures were, but I certainly get a sense of the variety, Yasuda's mastery, and the enjoyment that all of you had.

Is that a place to eat in or just a store? What else do they have?

You folks had a great time! Thanks for sharing a bit of the experience. Great thread!

[Edited to replace wrong photo with right photo. ] Is that halvah on the upper right corner? The bakery near your house looks great! I noticed that some of the places to eat in the food court are the same chains that are often seen in the U.S. Sbarro and Yo! Sushi are outfits I've seen before, especially Sbarro, which has long had a big branch in the Theater District in Manhattan. The shape and color of the Brasserie sign also looks familiar.

Indeed. Shchav is made from sheep sorrel and sour cream is mixed in. And of course, there's plenty of that wonderful northern European herb, dill. My father likes shchav; I find it very sour but not bad in small sips. Any of several varieties of borsht is more my style. Right. Shashlik is popular, I think? I'm presuming that comes from the Caucasus. I'm guessing that the cuisine of Central Asian republics like your native Kyrgyzstan has had an impact, too. What foods that come from Central Asia are popular with Muscovites nowadays? You have had an interesting life. I have an anthropologist friend who went to Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy in the wintertime for a conference on shamanism. She brought back slides of the extraordinarily beautiful landscape (to a large extent, a snow- and volcano-scape). She told us she spent a lot of time in thermal baths and drinking vodka (possibly at the same time, sometimes) with her new friends, and that everyone was really friendly. I neglected to congratulate you on your pregancy! How far along are you, and how are you finding your eating habits changing, if at all? Any unusual cravings?

You've gotten some good recommendations, but no-one's mentioned El Malecon yet. I think that when you get pollo a la brasa from them, you probably won't go back to Chirping Chicken anymore, even though their chicken is good. El Malecon is on Amsterdam Av. between 97th and 98th Sts. Also, try Turkuaz on Broadway and 100th St. for Turkish food. I haven't been there lately, though, so if anyone has found they've deteriorated, please speak up.

Duh, of course -- I guess I just assumed fennel bulb since I had a fennel (bulb) based dish recently... In that case, I guess I don't know what the Jewish part of the dish is, then.[...] ← Possibly the absence of yogurt.

Presumably referring to fennel seeds, which are used often in Indian cuisines. If you want some recipes from the Calcutta Jewish community, have a look at Copeland Marks' book on Regional Indian Cooking (the name may be slightly different), which also features Hindu and Muslim cuisine from Kashmir, Tibetan cuisine from Tibetan exiles I think, and Anglo-Indian cuisine, and maybe something else I can't think of, offhand. It's a good cookbook.

Alina, I have looked forward to a blog by you for ages! Have a wonderful time. Your English is excellent, and your photography is marvellous! Lately, I've had the idea of trying to find a satisfying blintz in New York. Are blintzes part of Muscovite cuisine? What about varenniki, is that a common thing to eat there? I'm wondering how much overlap there is between the Eastern European Jewish cuisine I know from my Ukranian/Polish/Lithuanian background and today's Muscovite cuisine. Some other foodstuffs from my childhood are compote (made by my Ukranian Baba), pastrami, stuffed cabbage, borsht (as per your subtitle), shchav, latkes (potato pancakes), split pea soup, flanken (flank steak) or bone soup, chicken soup -- well, I think you get the picture. Where are you from, by the way?

So did I. Thanks for taking the time out to do it. That black serving bowl looks like one I saw in Bed, Bath, and Beyond recently. Is it kind of shiny in real life? I usually like more decorative bowls, but I thought that one -- because it wasn't just black but also had a shininess to it -- had a rather Zen feeling to it, if that makes any sense.

Sabzi?

What's the difference between a university and a college in Canadian English?

I really enjoyed the photos and story! I've been once, in 1999, I think. I have to disagree about the garlic ice cream -- I'd only go as far as saying that it's surprisingly acceptable to have once -- but some of the food, like the calamari, was tasty. Did they have the garlic fortified wine this time? My brother and I got free samples, and man, did it suck! Anyway, though it was really hot the year I went and further from San Francisco than my brother had realized (it took a long time to get there), it was a lot of fun. I wouldn't rush back but would go if I were a lot closer than San Francisco at the time the fair was happening.

I went to the restaurant in the Ukranian National Home (actually called Ukranian East Village Restaurant) tonight with my friend. I had a cup of excellent mushroom barley soup (I really recommend this), some pleasant compote to drink, and one of my friend's very good blueberry varenniki (pierogies). I also had an order of potato blintzes. The filling of the blintzes tasted good, but I still thought their exterior was a bit more crispy than I prefer, and definitely too buttery. So while it was a pleasant meal and I look forward to going back and trying other dishes, it clearly is not the end point of my search for truly satisfying blintzes.

As a classical performer, I have to tell you I strongly disagree. I want people to come to my performances, and I'm happy they're there, regardless of what they're wearing. Furthermore, when I'm not performing at a concert, I dress informally, myself. I'll bet if you ask other classical performers whether they feel disrespected because someone came to hear them while wearing jeans, you'll get a lot of laughs from them. Thanks for that response. I was really hoping to hear from you. Interestingly, I disagree. But that could be largely a function of the different areas of classical music in which Michael and I work. In opera, glamor is part of the deal. I don't think it's respectful to the performers, to the (usually quite elegant) venue or to the other attendees when someone wears shorts and a t-shirt to the Metropolitan Opera. Met Opera in the Park? Different story. I hold similar views on, say, Le Bernadin and Shake Shack. ← I don't wear shorts and a t-shirt to the Met (not my style, but besides, I'd freeze my ass off!), but I do wear khakhis and a button-down shirt that's not tucked in, with hiking boots on my feet so as not to make them uncomfortable (my formal shoes are OK for when I'm onstage but no good for walking in). I don't dress up but do try to make myself presentable, in more or less the same way as when I teach or eat out at a casual restaurant. (If it helps, I almost always sit way up in the cheap seats.) Similarly, I've found that people who wear black jeans but a long-sleeve button-down shirt do fine in upscale places that don't absolutely require suits, but painters who wear paint-spattered clothing in such establishments get stares from other patrons. I've never been influenced by anyone who felt I should have worn a suit just to go to the opera or shouldn't have laughed at the hilarious moment in a Haydn symphony, but I do wear a suit for a meal that I feel warrants it. I think part of what explains my approach is that a trip to a luxe restaurant is a special occasion for me, whereas a trip to an opera where I'm in the audience rather than the pit is a busman's holiday and a time to relax and just concentrate on what's on stage. I think there's a range of acceptable clothing in most places, and that as long as people dress presentably, what's most important is how they behave. If you're going to a concert, turn off your damned cellphones so that they don't start ringing during the softest and most tender moment, shut up, and don't fiddle with your throat lozenges. And don't fall asleep and snore! Similarly, at a restaurant, don't misbehave (I needn't describe types of misbehavior in restaurants).

Matthew Hassett came to my attention very quickly, with his first few posts after he joined the eGullet Society. As he continued to post, he very quickly established himself as a person of substance whose views on food and drink commanded respect, because his writing was always clear and incisive and showed a depth of knowledge and experience that suggested someone at least twice his age. What his posts and his private communication with me also showed was a person of great character, a genuinely nice and very enthusiastic person, who lived life to the fullest and obviously got great pleasure from sharing his knowledge and love of food and drink. I regret that I never met him in person, but I feel that I have lost a friend. I am proud to have been Matt's colleague and very shocked and saddened that he is gone. I would like to honor him by reposting some early posts by him, which show his love of good food and drink, his enthusiasm (which just pours forth so fast in the first of these posts that it can't be constrained by ordinary sentences), and his sense of humor. Matt made a great impact in a relatively short time. He is now a part of the legacy of the eGullet Society, in the best sense of the word "legacy." Enjoy the foie gras and cocktails in Heaven, Matt, and save some for us when, God willing, we join you there someday not too soon.

Nice photos! FYI, that writing is Korean (no Japanese sign is visible), the writing on a lot of products inside is Korean, and the store is evidently Korean. Kristin would undoubtedly agree that there is a lot of overlap between Japanese and Koreans on what they like to eat, however, so it's understandable why you would think of that store as the Japanese grocery.

In the spirit of previous "THE BEST" threads (linked here), I would like to ask you where you can find really satisfying blintzes in New York. I haven't had a really good one in quite some time. I like the pierogies at Teresa's, but the blintzes there are very disappointing because they're too oily and not moist enough. The blintzes I remember from my childhood were not so crunchy on the outside. I want to go to a place that has good potato and cheese blintzes, at a minimum -- bonus for good cheese and fruit or/and fruit jam blintzes. A friend of mine said that the Ukranian National Home restaurant on 2nd Av. between St. Marks and 9th has good ones, so we will probably go there for a late dinner tomorrow. But meantime, please tell us who makes blintzes that make you happy.

If they give you only an hour for lunch, Yemen Cafe might be tough. The service there tends to be friendly but relaxed. I think Fountain Cafe, the Lebanese restuarant across the street, would probably be faster. I got a felafel sandwich from there for takeout that was very good (this was only a few months ago), and I've also gotten good dolma and desserts from there. Courtesy of superpages.com: Fountain Cafe Inc 183 Atlantic Avenue (between Court and Clinton) Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 624-6764

Thanks, Sethro.