EDITORIAL
Annals of Russian “Cuisine”
Several times already (click the “cuisine” category in our sidebar to see them) we’ve exposed the pathetic charade that is Russian cuisine, a perfect representation of the country itself in that is embodies unreformed yuckiness whilst the benighted population thinks it grand.
But even still, the comments about the latest Russian restaurant to open in America’s eating capital, New York City, in the New York Times by the nation’s leading restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, bear noting:
Vodka may be the best thing about this new Russian restaurant in the space that used to be, years ago, Silver Swan. Main courses ($18 to $27) are less successful. The requisite chicken Kiev is unnecessary, and no one ought to eat beef stroganoff over buckwheat kasha with a lunatic blast of truffle oil over the top. Chilean sea bass with mustardy mashed potatoes? It’s protein and starch, no more. No thanks as well to grandmatronly kotletki, here rendered as bunless hamburgers, cooked down to gray. Pelmeni will always do in a pinch.
The only thing Mr. Sifton found to be edible in the freakishly weird looking establishment were pickles and smoked fish. These are not, of course, dishes prepared by a chef, which the actual point of going to a restaurant. Such dishes, he discovered, simply made him gag. The best thing? The vodka.
To put in the final nail, right next to this review in the print edition was a second about the Trinidadian restaurant Trini-Gul. A glowing love letter to every dish offered by the place, each one more succulent and well-prepared than the last, the piece highlights how the people of Trinidad opened themselves to reform and allowed themselves to be influenced by a wide variety of cuisines from Africa to China.
Ouch.
And so it goes in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Failure follows failure, which is followed by denial and rationalization and ultimately the murder of anyone who dares find fault. The USSR collapsed from just such ignorance and blindness, and Russia can do no other.
La Russophobe 
Russians do not have a “cuisine”.
They have food.
So true.
Why not condemn traditional Finnish food too? It’s pretty much the same.
Because the Finns do not demand that their food be recognized as the best
oh i c.
…and Russians have….since when?
You probably were not visiting this blog when one Russian moron, now from San Jose, was posting excruciatingly long comments claiming that Moscow was the best place in the world to eat. You should have seen his menus and reviews.
I have a suspicion that “Jason” is said pederast from San Jose
Why? Did I make any claims of Russian food being tasty? Er, are you from the Michelin Guide? I used to think “Kim Zegfield” was an alias of some Washington post writer, considering his/her interest in Russian dining I’m starting to think he/she is a Michelin Guide critic.
I’m from MA living in FL and just for the record, food sucks here compared to MA.
Since when is ” chicken Kiev ” russian ? To begin with , the correct name of the dish is : ” Kaplun
po Kyevsky ” , which translates into : capon ala
Kyiv . If one does not know the difference between a chicken and a capon he should not
be writting restaurant reviews . This native Ukrainian dish , along with numerous other
Ukrainian dishes were weree absorbed by the
russians as their own . Pilmeni as well are not
a russian dish . They are actually a siberian
dumpling derived from the many oriental
(korean , chinese , mongolian ) dumplings
so popular among the native Siberian peoples .
I understand your gripes with the government in Russia, and I won’t say you’re wrong, but I think perhaps you are allowing your hatred of tyranny to allow you to go a bit overboard. I’ve been to Russia, and ate some fantastic meals there. It seems they have some pretty bad restaurants, too, but so does everyone–the trick in Russia is that upscale isn’t the place to find the best stuff. It’s in regular Russians’ kitchens. Even if you just boil their cuisine down to my two favorites, Borsch and Blini, that’s a potent combo right there. I could eat it every day, with a dollop of smetana on each.
Come on, La Russophobe. You’re better than this. And it will serve your purpose better in the long run if you don’t allow yourself to seem maniacly opposed to ANY single Russian thing. When you stoop to food criticism, you actually seem more like a caricature of what this website is supposed to be.
Dear James,
You must have found some places where Ukrainian “babushkas” worked in the kitchen, because you are referring to Ukrainian food. The kremlin always steals from others, and claims it as their own.
http://books.google.com/books?id=c4kvrPEweOcC&pg=PA65&dq=borscht+origin&as_brr=3&hl=ja#v=onepage&q=borscht%20origin&f=false
Sincerely,
LES