My First Russian Meal

On Sunday night I had my first Russian meal. After Katya and I finished our maddeningly short tour of the Kremlin she thought I should have a real Russian meal, so she began a series of phone calls to friends to try and find a place next to the Kremlin. This was carried out in a cold rain - apparently global warming has hit Russia as well, because I was expecting to arrive to a winter wonderland and it was only slightly colder than Vermont. Ironically, she ended up finding a place back closer to my hotel, so we jumped back on the metro. Now, to get there you actually had to walk through a large, very modern grocery store - sort of, in an odd way, how it used to be to reach the City View Bar in Cincinnati when you had to go through a local grocery store (back in the day). Neither of us were real hungry - while waiting for her to show up I had gone in search of one of my odder traditions - McDonald's, which Ialways eat at once in every new country, even though I never go to McDonald's in the US - oh, and a Big Mac, Coke and fries cost 172 rub -or around $4.50 - same as in the US - the same as every place in the world. Anyway, we decided to have a soup and salad, which means something different in Russia than in the US. The soup was easy - borscht, which I actually loved, even though Katya told me that many Ameircans won't even try it because it is made from beets (and, truthfully, I don't really like beets - but I had several beet-based dishes that night and enjoyed every one of them). Of course, I had also had to put sour cream in it because the Russians put sour cream on everything. When the Russians say salad they never really mean anything lettuce based - it's a salad bar, but full of fish dishes or buckwheat or fried mushrooms (apparently Russians, like hobbits, love mushrooms) or this gelatenous meat dish (with horseradish on top) or pirozhky (a pastry filled with meat, cabbage, mushrooms or apples) or blinis (Russian pancakes, filled with everything from potatoes and mushrooms to chocolate). To drink I had kvass, a drink which, athough it looks like Coke, and is fermented from bread crumbs, is both non-alcoholic and very good.