A TYPICAL CANTEEN IN RUSSIA | What do Russians eat? 🇷🇺

Hello there, today we've been walking around the center and as we do we got hungry, so we're heading to a place called Stolovaya. There are many of them spread out across Sochi and they're very popular across Russia and ex-Soviet Union countries. What Stolovaya is, is basically a canteen where they sell like really homely dishes from again, sort of cuisines from all over the world. You can find borsch, kharchoyne, khachapuri, lobyo and Russian stuff, lishli, all sorts of things. So we're going there and you're coming with us. It's really busy though, must be good then. You can find all sorts of places like that, usually they're quite affordable, sometimes you can find a really posh one, but as a rule they're pretty affordable. Opa, special challenge to get out. I'm not having any. Hold on. There we go. Oh my god, one of us is clever, we'll be screwed. So this, as Stolovaya's go, is probably quite upmarket, the prices are still very good, but you can find them that look really Soviet. We actually went to a really Soviet looking one in our St. Petersburg video last year. But yeah, this one's quite new, typical of Sochi really, a little bit more upmarket again. They sell makarons here. They sell makarons here, I mean if that doesn't tell you something then... Oh, I'm going to have a health salad. What's that? It's a vinegarette. There is a salad with beetroot and prunes, also here is chicken, mayonnaise, obviously carrots and beans. This is a cold soup, I'm not a fan but Matt loves it. Vinaigrette, there is, I'll tell you later what's in here. Oh there's a lot more, there is olivier. I think let's get an olivier. Trays are filling up. Hello. Do you want a salad? Can I have a borsch with beef, please? For a salad? Here you go. Thank you. Can I have a baked cake, please? What else do we have? Makarons? Makarons, please. Makarons are on the house. Potatoes with cheese. Everything looks amazing. Thank you. Can you just put a plate here? Where should I put the plate? So they give you these little checks, don't they? And you go to the end of the counter and pay up here. I've never got the checks before, they just tell you how much everything is. They just look at everything? No. 1496 rubles. So we paid for all of that 1496 rubles. So about, let's say, 15 pounds and 18-19 dollars. The borsch is not very red. I know, I thought that. Is that Solyanka? That's Solyanka, that's the borsch. I thought they had green borsch. Yeah. Probably nice. What I like about these places is that you can still be healthy. They sell lots of vegetables, steamed vegetables. And chicken, also chicken meatballs against steamed stuff. So that's really nice, you have the option. So you can be as unhealthy as you want. Right, so let's take you through what we've got. This is a... What is this? So this is a cake. It's made out of liver. And there is some stuffing in there. But I thought it sounded interesting. And there's pancakes, no? Yeah, the pancakes are made out of liver. Yeah, that's why I said it. So that I've never seen before. This is pasta, macaroni. This is a chicken Kiev. Most of you may know chicken Kievs, but obviously Kiev named after a Ukrainian city. And they're often eaten with mashed potato. We've got a plate full of veg. Which is for lira. We've got a... Also like a fried chicken in cheese, is that correct? And this salad is called vinaigrette. Which is beetroot, cabbage what else is in there? Oh, this is actually not vinaigrette. This is just a healthy one. I can see lots of beetroot, cabbage and I think that's it. Healthy vinaigrette. This salad also is called Olivier. Or it's often called in the UK for some reason it's sold in Turkish restaurants. And it's called Russian salad. So if you've seen Russian salad on the menu that's what they're talking about. This is Salelka. Which is a famous Russian soup. Made with... There are lots of different types of meat. Olives, ham, sour cream. Sausages, salami. There are different types of... Pickles. And then lastly we've got borscht. Right in front of Julia, obviously. But this is not a very dark looking borscht. You obviously mix the sour cream in. Yes, but still. And the last one here is called Golubtsi. Which is like a Russian massive bulma. There's loads of meat and rice inside. And then a cabbage leaf. It's all wrapped in a cabbage leaf. And then served with sauce. I think to be honest also that's going to go well with the mash. So let's dig in. We've also got different compotes here, haven't we? Yes, this is made out of dried fruit and this one is made out of berries. And we've got a platter cake. Prague cake, which was famous all over the ex-Soviet Union, wasn't it? Oh yes, it's very famous. Okay, we're starving. Let's dig in. The salad is awful. Is the salad bad? It's onion. It's onion, not cabbage. It's alright. Standard borscht. Not beetroot though. How does it compare to the one we had in the Carpathians? I don't like it. It's borscht. It's alright. It's a bit too sour for me. Too sour and it seems like there is no beetroot. Which is why I love this soup. Because of beetroot. How can you have borscht without beetroot? So borscht is probably the most famous Russian slash Ukrainian soup, isn't it? At least Ukrainian borscht is famous all over the world. Oh, it's my favourite, so 100%. So borscht usually is very dark in colour. It's very meaty. This one, it seems like they substitute beetroot for cabbage, like pickled cabbage. Right, so let's try salenka. It's a soup that we've had a lot of times before and it's a soup that I absolutely love. It smells really, really meaty. I'm trying to think what it's similar to. It's got a similar smell, familiar smell. I'll come back to it or I'll write it down below. Did you ever try my mum's one? She makes the best one. Seriously? Didn't she make one when we left to go film our cooks? Yes. Literally, yes, we left. On the same day. She doesn't like us. No, especially, yeah. It's really sour, salenka. And you get the fresh kick from the herbs. The broth itself is really meaty, as I say, really sour. And then you've got a difference in textures from the veg to the hams, obviously a little bit crunchy. The olives, really good. And that sour kick is amazing. That's quite a good quality salenka as well, I think. I want to try another. I actually really love my mum's one. Obviously it's the best because I know what she put in there as well. Sometimes salenka can be quite heart-burning, that's why I stay out of it, but I love that soup too. It is really good. So the good thing about all of these dishes is that you get an ostolovay. They are the dishes that your average Russian would eat. They're the dishes that every family cooks at home. And like Julia and Lyra were both saying, it's dishes that their mums cook. It reminds you of childhood, doesn't it? Some of these foods. They're so heart-warming. Golubtsy, that's one of your gran's favourites, isn't it? So, do you want to move on to the golubtsy? Let's try it. Let's cut through. That is a giant one. That is stuffed really well. So you've got the meat and rice inside. And it's wrapped in cabbage leaf. It's all like tomatoey sauce. Let's try it. That's a big chunk. I believe in you. There's definitely not enough sauce for me. I normally love the sauce that they're cooked in. It's just a big chunk of meat which is not heavily spiced. It just tastes like the seasoning. Just salt and pepper. But there is no specific spices added to it. You can taste a bit of rice. But I wouldn't say it's a particularly strong flavour. Usually they're cooked in a saucepan, aren't they? There's like 10 or 12 of them. And then just covered in sauce. And then the meat's put on. And they just soak in all that sauce. I guess maybe that one's probably been sitting on the shelf for a little while. Yeah, but it's not very strong in flavour. It's quite bland, but it's alright. I really want to try this. That looks interesting. Go for it. I'm looking at the chicken here. It's your favourite, isn't it? And she's suitable. Okay. Liver cake. Interesting. How's it smell? Honestly? Yeah. Weird. Go for it. It's like a push, tuck, a try. Good, right? It's actually really nice. Good? My mum makes all sorts of things when I'm out of the house. It is actually delicious. Try it, mum. Crab's here that's made out of liver. And you've got onion and carrot in there. And I guess a bit of mayonnaise mixed in there. You've got it between every single layer, but yeah, there are not that many of them. And I guess there's some egg on top. It's actually really gently just melting in your mouth. That's lovely. The blend with the carrot and onion I guess they've been fried off. The blend is really nice. And you get a hint of liver. It's not overpowering. The texture of the liver is really nice. It's not elastic-y or anything at all. It just, like you say, melts. Just falls apart in your mouth. I'm impressed. Usually when you're done, you take your dirty dishes somewhere. In our case, there is the window where Matt's taking it. This is frog cake. It's very popular in Russia. And I think across Soviet Union countries. Which is just chocolate cake. Oh, it smells very good. I mean, that's a face you can't really understand. Is it good or not? I don't like frog cake. It's tasty. It's not dry at all. It's not very dry, which is nice. But to be honest, I'm very fussy with chocolate cake. And this cream is made out of butter. So it's quite heavy. And for me, it's just a bit too much. I don't like creams like that. Right, you said bad, Lyra said good. I'm having a deciding vote. Oh, so typical, huh? It's really, really good. It's really sweet. I understand what you're saying. It can be overpoweringly sweet. I think if you were to have a whole one yourself, maybe. But there's like apricot jam. Apricot jam running right through the middle on top of this cream, which gives it a nice little sort of difference in taste. A little bit sour is the word I was looking for. But for me, it's not even like the cake itself. It's the cream. There are lots of different cakes that are much better than that. And they don't have any of that here. We'll show them to you at some point when we see them around. That's a bit better. Right, so we're going to leave this video here. It was just a short one to show you some of the more traditional Russian food, show you what a stolova is like. And that one, as we say, is quite a modern stolova, to be honest. We've been to some pretty dodgy looking ones. Yeah, proper gritty ones in our time. And we'll show you obviously some more as and when we go to them. But yeah, on that note, thanks for watching this video. See you in the next one!