Authentic: In the Russian Kitchen
Tucked away in a little corner of Khalifa bin Zayed street among a row of shops behind the Russian Embassy is a slice of home for the Russian students ...
Oct 26, 2013
Tucked away in a little corner of Khalifa bin Zayed street among a row of shops behind the Russian Embassy is a slice of home for the Russian students of NYU Abu Dhabi and a gastronomical adventure for those who have yet to sample Russian cuisine.
The Russian Kitchen House Cafeteria boasts a cosy atmosphere, with what freshman Serhii Rokachev calls stereotypically Ukrainian decor. Three tables are arranged in an almost circular fashion, laid out with clean, cheerfully-colored tablecloths while a television plays a continuous live stream of Channel One Russia.
Rokachev, who hails from Ukraine, promised to give me a taste of what food is like back home. Freshman Toma Pavlov, a Russian-speaker Bulgarian by birth, also accompanied me on my introduction to Russian home-cooked fare.
As we settled down, the maître d’ bustled in with the menus. A portly woman in her 40s, Natasha has worked in the café for the past 10 years. She enjoys cooking in the kitchen just as much as she enjoys waitressing, and she loves recommending Russian food to people who haven’t tried it before.
One glance at the menu told me I was lucky to have two Russian speakers with me. The menu was written in both the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet, but some of the English words were only phonetic transliterations of their Russian counterparts. A variety of never-seen-before words like borsch, okroshka and jarkoe covered the page.
Luckily, both Natasha and my two friends helped me understand the menu. Before long, my steaming plate of vareniki had arrived. Vareniki is actually a Ukrainian dish, a set of boiled dumplings that can be filled with a variety of stuffings, including cabbage and meat. The café however, serves only three varieties: vareniki with potato, cabbage or cheese.
The varenniki I had ordered was stuffed with tvorog, milky and sweet cottage cheese. Freshly boiled, the dumplings were firm but tender.
To wash it all down, I had to decide between komkot, a juice made from cooking fruits in a large volume of water, or kvas, a fermented beverage made from ryebread. While the Kompot was sweet but tasted slightly of overcooked fruit, the kvas requires some getting used to.
“It tastes like beer, minus the alcohol,” said Rokachev.
We had agreed to order a different dish each and share them so we could all try out the different foods. As such, I also got to taste Pavlov’s chicken Kiev roll, which was served with mashed potatoes, and Rokachev’s pelmeni. The chicken Kiev was crunchy on the outside while tender on the inside, and the mashed potato complemented it nicely. Meanwhile, the pelmeni were pretty much the same as my Vareniki, except they were stuffed with beef instead of cheese.
We had agreed to order a different dish each and share them so we could all try out the different foods. As such, I also got to taste Pavlov’s chicken Kiev roll, which was served with mashed potatoes, and Rokachev’s pelmeni. The chicken Kiev was crunchy on the outside while tender on the inside, and the mashed potato complemented it nicely. Meanwhile, the pelmeni were pretty much the same as my Vareniki, except they were stuffed with beef instead of cheese.
Prices are pretty reasonable, ranging from 13 to 30 AED, for a good variety of both Russian and Ukrainian fare. For those who are perhaps not as adventurous, the menu also features beef cutlets, chicken breast burger and meatballs in sauce, among other more familiar names, so you won’t feel too out of your comfort zone. Serving sizes are mostly standard, and normally one dish should be enough for a meal with room for perhaps a small dessert, Medovik cake or ice cream.
For its cosy atmosphere, charming staff, and delicious home-cooked food, definitely pay Russian Kitchen House Cafeteria a visit. You won’t regret the experience.
The restaurant is open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Serhii Rokachev.
Asyrique Asyraf Thevendran is deputy features editor. Email him at editorial@thegazelle.org.
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