The Best Food to Eat in Russia
Russia is a mixing pot of cultural flavours from across Europe and Central Asia — what’s not to love about that?
Our three and a bit week long trip through Russia took us from the Europeancentric far north west to the Mongolian border in the far east. As we ticketed cities and time zones off along the trans-Siberian railway, to our surprise, we discovered delicious cuisine from century old cultures.
From my point of view, Russians love luxury and fine dining is a perfect example of this. Wander around the European streets of St Petersburg or the exuberant and rich avenues of Moscow and you’ll see expensive cafes, diners and roof top bars, all filled with well dressed and well connected locals.
On two separate occasions we found ourselves sampling fine dining, or at least a very traditional and classy style of Russian dining. The first was at Gogol in St Petersburg, an excellent restaurant with 1900s Russian fare and homely service. The second was in the dining cart of the trans-Siberian railway, where we ate local baked fish and had fine table service.
Russian food is varied, homely and of high quality. No matter what you’re eating and where you’re eating it you’ll be treated to something prepared with love and served with charm.
Vodka and snacks
In Russia vodka is a religion. It is held to such high regard that there are museums dedicated to the chemistry and history of the clear, intoxicating liquid.
When I sampled some of Russia’s pride I was served up a tray of little snacks. A pickle, a slice of bread with dried herring and white onion and a slice of bread with lard.
Each snack was meant to be consumed after a shot of vodka. The one thing they all had in common was the strong, salty taste they left in your mouth.
From what I was told, Russians never drink vodka without a snack and these snacks were traditional to drinking vodka.
All in all, they added a little savoury sensation in between the toxicity of the piercing vodka.
Multicultural tastes
Russia is a cultural mixing pot. Bordering Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Pacific Ocean, Russia hosts flavours from across all these regions and so much more.
One of the most prominent and popular tastes in Russia is fare from Georgia. It is so easy to fall in love with food from the former Soviet state.
Our first taste of Georgia came in Moscow. We tucked into giant dumplings, meatballs covered in spicy tomato sauce and khachapuri, cheesy bread boats filled with a cracked egg baked in a wood fire oven. Best of all, we ate it all with a lashing of Georgian wine served in clay bowls.
A lotta meat
Without stating the obvious, Russia is bloody cold. One way to combat the cold is by putting on a few layers of cholesterol and tummy fat by eating your body’s weight in meat.
You’ll find all types of meat cooked in a whole manner of different ways. We ate rabbit stew, pickled herring, baked chicken, casseroles, pork dumplings, steamed fish and a whole lotta more meat.
From our experience, Russia is not the easiest place to travel if you’re a vegetarian or a lover of fruit and veg.
Pancakes of all shapes and sizes
For breakfast, lunch or tea you can pretty much set your watch depending on the types of pancakes you’ll be eating in Russia.
At breakfast you’ll eat crepes served with some fresh fruit and drenched in condensed milk. For lunch you can gobble up some savoury pancakes with sautéed mushrooms. A little treat that is served before dinner is the bilini pancake with caviar and sour cream. To close off the day you can finish yourself off with some sweet chocolate pancakes with flambé strawberries.
Another perfect pancake was the potato pancake. This fried, savoury, scrumptious little morsel can be found all across Eastern Europe and is a must for anyone who is a big fan of potatos!
Canteens offer up some cheap and tasty delights
Often we’d be feeling fatigued after our trans-Siberian and we didn’t have the energy to navigate non-English speaking restaurants and cafes so we went in search of Russian canteens.
Canteens offer up tasty, reliable and local flavours at reasonable prices. In Kazan we found one of our favourite canteens serving up delicious local Tatar cuisine at very affordable prices. The restaurant was brimming with students looking for a cheap feed and they weren’t wrong. When in doubt, follow the student crowd!
