The Power of Low to No: Food

I had a mini-internal-freak-out moment about two weeks before leaving for Moscow. In Russian class, we were going over the menu of MXAT’s cafeteria. Not only could I not remember or figure out 95% of the items listed, but it also hit me: what was I going to eat in Russia???

For some reason the menu we went over in class that day seemed particularly unappetizing to me. Cottage cheese? Kasha? Beets? Liver? TONGUE??? I’m somewhat adventurous in cuisine, but some of the items sounded gross. It didn’t help that all of a sudden the “salads” came back to me. Having spent two wonderful New Year’s celebrations with my Russian friend Anya’s family, I remember not being a huge fan of the Russian version of a salad. It usually involves a lot of beets, sour cream, or mayonnaise. Ble…I mean yum…

Needless to say, I had the lowest of the low in expectations when it came to my food situation here in Russia. I tried to stay positive (“I hear the yogurt’s good…I like yogurt…”), and I knew that eventually I was destined to find some things I enjoyed. But I fully expected to spend at least the first two weeks trying a lot of things that made me want to throw up a little.

But the Power of Low to No was on my side. Was I ever wrong. It’s a good thing I’m walking a lot here and have 5 flights of stairs to climb every day.

We’ll start with MXAT’s cafeteria, the stelovia. While it’s true that every time I still have a mini anxiety attack as I approach the line, this is only because I still cannot decipher what everything means on the menu. However, I do know the words for “chicken,” “rice,” and “vegetables.” But the great thing about the stelovia is that what you don’t serve yourself, you can still see. So I just very nicely ask and point for the woman behind the counter. I have rarely been let down, and the food is CHEAP. I can eat a hearty meal there at lunch or dinner for $4 to $6.

I was told that Moscow restaurants are uber expensive and was concerned (aka had low expectations) about eating out for lunch. We often can’t make the half hour trek back to the dorm for a meal in the kitchen, but many Moscow restaurants have this wonderful thing called business lunch (spelled phonetically in Cyrillic, it actually sounds more like “beezneez lanch”). It varies from place to place, but usually for under $10 you get a soup, a salad (the real kind!), some sort of main course like chicken or fish with a side, and a drink. There are several great business lunches near school, and more places I hope to try. I don’t think you can eat that well for that little at a sit down place in Harvard Square.

In our first or second week here Brendan took us to this place he and 2nd year classmate Paul went to practically every day last year, called Kruzhka (zh=soft j). They liked it for it’s cheap but good food and beer, but from the way they talked about it we had very low expectations. They described it as a hole in the wall, and from further descriptions I was fully prepared to enter a grimy, underground, extremely sketchy place the size of my dorm room. But Kruzhka is more like a cross between the atmosphere of Grendel’s Den with the sprawling size of John Harvard’s (maybe bigger) in Cambridge. It’s smoky (sometimes ridiculously so), but I like it.

I’ve also been surprised to find how much of the Russian food I like. Kasha (buckwheat) is actually quite delicious, as is borscht. They have blinis (crepes) stuffed with a variety of yummy things (savory or sweet, I’m a fan of cheese and mushroom or sweet cheese and apricot), and a mini fast-food type blini place is right near school called Teremok. It’s kind of dangerous having it so close by.

There’s a new grocery story really close to the dorm that has an amazing prepared foods section. We all love Bakhetle so much that we probably go there too often. From gin and tonic in a can for $1.50 (which is really more like 2 g&ts in a can) to their array of potato pancakes and peroshki (bread filled with some sort of savory goodness), it’s heaven. They also have cirniki, an amazing little round cheese and flour concoction that I don’t think I can do justice here. And sometimes they have hachapuri, Georgian cheesy bread.

Now that you’re all hungry, I have saved Georgian food for last. Oh my goodness. How do they cram so much culinary delight into one cuisine? If you ever have a chance, go to a Georgian restaurant. They have this green bean (beans like kidney beans, not like string beans) mixture called lobio that’s amazing, and there’s a red one too that’s served hot. They have shashlik (shish kebabs) and cook other meats together with herbs and spices and I’m salivating at the thought.

Despite all these gastronomic delights, sometimes nothing beats a good salad. Which I think I’ll go make right now.