Ultimate Russian Food in Moscow!! STURGEON OF KINGS + Epic Beef Stroganoff in Russia!

World Cuisine Travel
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40 Video Views·May 15, 2025
MOSCOW, RUSSIA - First time in Russia, and I was very excited to be in Moscow, and go on an ultimate Russian food tour of Moscow. Get ready to eat everything from a sturgeon cooked for the Russian Kings to the most epic beef stroganoff in Moscow on this ultimate Russian food tour.
Good morning, hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens, I'm in Moscow, Russia,
and today we're gonna go on a giant
Russian food tour of Moscow.
We're gonna eat everywhere from aristocratic cafes
to Soviet canteens.
It's gonna be a lot of amazing Russian food.
I'm gonna be hanging out with my friend Dmitry
from Value of the Moment Tours.
He does off the beaten path tours.
He's just a cool guy, he's so much fun to hang out with.
And we are gonna start eating now for breakfast.
I can't wait to share all the Russian food
with you in this video.
Okay, Dmitry.
Hi, hi.
Hi, Mark, how are you?
Awesome, yes.
Welcome to Moscow.
Thank you so much, thank you so much.
And we are going to our first place,
so Dr. Zhivago is the restaurant close to the Red Square,
and the place where we will try
some traditional Russian food.
The restaurant is actually located
in a very historic hotel, right?
Yeah.
And so it's called Dr. Zhivago?
Zhivago, Dr. Zhivago.
Dr. Zhivago.
All right, yeah, let's go inside.
Sliding on in.
Okay, so we have stepped into Dr. Zhivago.
The setting is amazing.
It's like bright and white,
but with really, really red to contrast.
What's amazing about this place is it does have a view
of the Red Square right outside the window,
right across the street.
And the alcoholics, they used to drink vodka
from these glasses.
What is the juice again?
This is Sibakhtorn.
Oh, Sibakhtorn.
It has a little bit of a slightly fermented smell to it.
Should be sweet and sour.
Yeah, sweet and sour, and just a little bit acidic.
I'm not sure if it's working really like this or not,
but it's good.
Micah got the chicken brock,
and they put hard-boiled floating eggs inside.
We got some dishes to share.
A buckwheat porridge, which is almost like a,
it's like a thick porridge, but buckwheat.
You can see the grains.
There's mushrooms in there, maybe some dill, I think.
We also got eggs, poached eggs,
and they put it over a piece of bread.
Bread, and the cheese on the top, and the caviar.
The caviar.
The red caviar.
And then finally, what is this one, Dimitri?
This one is with cherries.
And it's called vareniki?
Vareniki, it's called vareniki.
I'm gonna start with the eggs and the poached eggs.
That's cheese all over it.
There's spinach on the bottom there, too.
And I think that would be the yolk with the,
oh, look at all that caviar.
Salmon, salmon eggs.
Salmon caviar.
It's like a trough of eggs and spinach and caviar.
Oh, yeah.
How is it?
Wow, that is amazing.
It's so rich.
I think there might be cream in there, too.
Yeah, there's definitely sour cream in there at the bottom,
mixed with the egg yolk, mixed with the richness
of the caviar, the red caviar, and then the cheese.
That's like all rich things in one piece of bread.
It's amazing.
So, and Russians are crazy about sour cream.
We add it everywhere in the main courses,
in the soups, in the desserts.
And of course, no vareniki can be eaten without sour cream.
Sour cream.
It's the main one.
So, they're filled with cherries,
but then there's cherry juice on top as well.
And I love when you mix sour cream in,
it creates that swirl with the broth,
with the soup.
Vareniki is amazing, too.
What I like about it is it doesn't taste sweet at all.
They're just sour.
And then what's amazing about that
is the actual wrapper of the vareniki is very thin.
They don't feel heavy, they don't feel like gummy.
It's like amazing texture on the wrapper.
I'm gonna add a little more of that cherry sauce.
Nice.
Oh, yes.
Bloody, bloody.
It does.
Bloody sauce.
What a beautiful sauce.
Then the final dish is the buckwheat porridge.
And again, it's more like a,
it's like, I mean, cooked kind of like rice would be cooked.
So, it's not like a runny porridge.
You can see the whole grains of buckwheat.
There's herbs in there, the dill, and then mushrooms.
You can feel the grains.
But what stands out to me is that flavor
of the mushroom and the dill.
This would give you energy.
This is hearty.
This is the whole grains.
The root of the creamy part, you get to see.
Demetri's quote was,
come on, Mark, you're in Russia.
More sour cream.
Major part of almost everything.
For me, out of all these dishes,
the sour cherry vareniki, that is,
that's the winner for me today for breakfast.
Ooh, candy.
Candy, candy.
Okay, back outside, finished with breakfast.
That's a very classic place.
Very luxurious.
Especially, again, representing the aristocratic class
during the Soviet Union period.
And another amazing thing is that they're open 24 hours.
So, if you get hungry, serve her some vareniki at 3 a.m.,
this is the spot.
We're gonna move on from here,
and actually, right now, we're just gonna walk around
the Kremlin, walk around the Red Square a little bit
before we go for our next meal.
So, we are approaching, now,
some of the most iconic and important places
within all of Moscow.
Let's say the Kremlin is the beginning of Russia.
So, the Russia started, the Moscow, the beginning of Moscow.
So, now it's the heart of Russia, of course.
The Kremlin is the biggest up-to-date medieval fortress
in Europe.
So, it was made as a fortress.
It's a fortress, yes.
Because, originally, people used to live inside the Kremlin.
And the outside were just villages, some traders.
That was the city.
We're gonna walk around Red Square a little bit.
We're gonna then go to St. Basil's Cathedral.
Welcome to the heart of Russia.
This is the Red Square,
the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral.
It's a huge space, lots of museums around.
And then, the president of Russia,
he still lives at the Kremlin.
And Dimitri is saying that the flag is up.
So, that means he's at home.
And now, we are finally coming all the way
to the other side of the square,
where there is St. Basil's Cathedral,
the onion, the colorful onion-shaped domes
in Russian architecture and style.
The onion-looking domes, it's not actually the onion.
So, originally, in Orthodox culture,
we have a lot of symbolism.
So, domes, they symbolize the flame of the candle.
Because, in Christianity, so when Jesus came,
he brought light into darkness.
And when the candle is burning,
there is no darkness around.
So, the church symbolizes a candle.
It's amazing to be here,
and then, especially to see the site
of St. Basil's Cathedral, and just that amazing,
it's an architectural wonder,
and the most iconic and most prized
architecture of Russia.
It is beautiful.
We got too cold out in the Red Square,
so we came into, this is a shopping center.
It was gloom, boom, boom.
The design, the architecture, the skyroof
is very impressive.
We stepped in here because we're cold,
and funny enough, we're gonna have some ice cream.
It's an original Soviet recipe, right?
It hasn't changed.
Soviet ice cream.
Melon, melon flavor, and the cream brulee.
Thank you.
We got the chocolate chip,
and it comes in a cone, one scoop of ice cream.
It's very uniform, but to be honest,
this is probably one of the coolest environments
of any ice cream that I've ever had,
right in the Red Square.
Let's try the ice cream.
Oh yeah, that's cold.
It's the same temperature as outside.
It's pretty good ice cream,
and very historical, for sure.
From here, within the same complex,
within the same mall, we're going to a Soviet canteen,
and this is one of the few places around the Kremlin
that still serves a budget meal,
but Soviet-style food.
All the food is prepared.
You walk through the line, you grab a tray,
you grab your different dishes.
Unfortunately, a lot of people had the same idea
to come here as we did.
It's a very, very well-known, it's a very famous place,
so the line starts down there,
and enters there, and then you can come,
and there's seating outside, there's seating inside.
I'm not sure how long the line is gonna take,
but we've gotta try the food here.
Hopefully, it doesn't take too long,
because all the food is prepared already.
It didn't take that long, just about 15 minutes, and...
We made it, I got a tray.
We're on the tray runway.
All the food is before us.
It starts from desserts.
Okay.
Yeah, maybe it's...
It starts from dessert.
It makes sense, because you see it,
okay, oh, I would like to take...
Herring under the fur coat,
and it's herring with a beetroot and lots of mayonnaise.
Beetroot salad as well, so it's very popular.
Now, we're getting to the hot food section.
With mashed potato, or with buckwheat, or just fish?
I think it's with chicken.
Okay.
Now, we go find a seat over in this section,
but right here, the light is good.
Great, and this whole total meal,
all of these different dishes cost 665,
which is like...
$10.
Yeah, $10.
So, the whole tray, the platter, Soviet-style cuisine.
So, it's really like a mix of different cuisines
from the entire Soviet Union region
and the different parts,
but we chose a couple of unique things,
and also we chose,
because we're gonna be eating a lot of other food today,
we chose some things that we won't be eating later today.
And with the soup,
oh, it looks like there's some salmon in there,
and maybe a mix of different fish,
plus potato and dill, maybe.
Oh, it's pretty good.
Like oily fish flavor,
with the dill flavor.
Nice, actually.
Herring under the coat.
And you need mayonnaise to fix it.
Wow.
That is mayonnaise-y.
Very mayonnaise-y.
Got the herring base, the sweet beet,
and then just stuck together with mayonnaise.
For that salad, beet, carrot, peas, potato.
Vinaigrette.
And it's a slight vinegary dressing,
but it's more refreshing, cold.
I think all the cooked vegetables.
Main course, main dish, the fish cutlet
with mashed potato.
Yeah, you can tell it's very spongy.
It's a little bit plain, but it's good.
Kind of like bready.
Tastes almost like half bread, half fish,
and then kind of shallow fried,
so it's kind of crispy.
It's kind of buttery.
That decoration.
One of the main concepts during the Soviet Union
was simplification.
Nothing luxury, but standardized.
How to say?
In the public things, everything should be very simple.
Okay.
Soviet meal complete, canteen meal complete.
That was very enjoyable,
and yeah, definitely very, very unique
to experience this in Moscow.
And also, even the unique thing is with it,
it's within a luxury, just an extremely luxury mall.
Designer labels all around,
and then a canteen-style lunch.
From here, we're gonna actually jump on the metro
for one station to get to a totally opposite meal,
like an aristocrat, a luxurious Russian meal next.
And another thing about Moscow
is that it has one of the world's most beautiful stations
of any metro system in the entire world.
Some of the architecture, some of the designs.
I'm not sure about this station,
but definitely today we're gonna have a chance
to see some of the stations,
which is gonna be cool as well.
All the people from Soviet Republics, Pakistan.
This is the historical cafe.
Actually, it's a restaurant.
It's called Pushkin,
like in honor of Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet.
So this is one of the iconic places.
It's a very popular place for Russian food, for interiors.
So it's like aristocratic interiors inside.
Cafe Pushkin, this place is legendary.
They have many different rooms, libraries.
The entire cafe restaurant is set up
to be like an aristocratic, a Russian aristocratic home.
And so they have the wooden staircase going up
to the room that we're gonna go,
but they've, because we have a stroller,
they are calling the elevator, special elevator service.
Thank you.
The elevator's quite an awesome experience too.
Hello, good morning.
Thank you very much.
Welcome now to Cafe Pushkin,
and this is the library, which is upstairs.
This is the classic room.
Below is more like a cafe kind of setting.
Thank you, by the way, to Cafe Pushkin,
because we called them ahead.
Dimitri called them ahead.
They opened up the library a little bit early for us
because, actually, you're not really allowed
to film in here when it's busy.
So that's why it's not yet full,
because we have early access, which is fantastic.
What's amazing about this place
and why I really wanted to come here
is because it's, I mean, it's now a restaurant
and a cafe and everything,
but it was the former residence of an aristocrat
of a high society.
It's a museum at the same time as it's a restaurant.
Everything is down to a science, to an art,
to perfection.
This is like a starter.
It's called the pirozhki.
And beginning with some pirozhki.
Which one first?
So the round one is the cabbage.
Cabbage.
This is the mushrooms.
Mushrooms.
And the last one is the pickled cucumbers.
Oh, okay.
And you were telling me that the pickled cucumbers
is really special here.
Okay, let's try the pickled cucumber.
Oh, wow.
Pick it up.
It's like perfect.
Look at that.
Look at that shimmer.
Oh.
Ah, okay.
Wonderful.
Look at that pickled cucumber.
The butter is very soft.
Yeah, the bread is so soft.
And again, it's not too thick.
Like very dainty.
Pickles, like salty pickles on the inside.
Really delicate.
Demetrius told me that Russia is very well known
for mushrooms and historically as well
and traditionally a lot of mushrooms are used
because of the wild mushrooms that are available.
And there's so much more fragrance to it.
And they're so flavorful.
There's so much flavor in a mushroom.
No, it's really good.
You can smell this really, really nice.
The smell and the flavor of mushrooms.
Okay, you cannot get this kind of flavor
from mushrooms that are from farm or from supermarkets.
This is wild mushrooms.
And then finally we have the last one, which is?
Cabbage.
Cabbage, okay.
Oh yeah, you smell the cabbage as soon as you open that up.
Which one is the horseradish?
The white one, okay.
Four different types of Russian vodka
and the one that stands out to me the most
is the horseradish vodka.
I can't wait to try that.
Yeah, horseradish is very good.
I love horseradish and I love horseradish.
But these are the starter dishes that we ordered.
We got two main, wow.
Another compliment, traditional pork meat pie.
With a special meat broth.
He poured in meat broth, what a genius move.
And then served it to us fresh.
I guess we have to try that right now
while it's hot and fresh before we try the other appetizers.
I guess there is a little bit of salt in there as well.
For sure.
Welcome to Russia.
Oh, it's so, immediately as he served it,
you could just smell the meaty aroma, the eggs, the, mm.
Mm, oh wow.
It's just, I don't know what to say.
It's just perfect.
They actually designed holes in this pie for re-juicing.
I don't even mind if it, you just, juiciness.
And it just works, like with the meat and the egg.
Oh, that's so good.
And maybe we should follow that with some of the vodka.
I gotta try the horseradish immediately first.
Which one would you like?
It's more Russian, I would try maybe tangerine.
Because it's like, we don't have tangerines in Russia.
So I will leave some more traditional flavors for you.
So this one is, it is traditional.
I mean, horseradish infused into vodka.
Cheers.
Oh yeah.
Smells amazing.
Smells like liquid horseradish, I love it.
Ship it, right?
I love it.
It's strong, but it's not so bitter because of the flavors.
And like, you do immediately feel that horseradish
kind of go up your nose a little bit.
Okay, the Russian salad.
And this is like a, it looks like a whole forest.
Sturgeon caviar on top.
But look, if you look at that detail,
even the cucumbers, perfectly sliced,
perfectly arranged in a spoke.
The salad, there's little crayfish,
there's sprigs, there's capers.
I will take one of these little sides
of the Russian salad.
And I think that's crayfish under there too, or ham.
Ham, that's what it is.
Yeah.
The next appetizer we got is a pike.
And the whole base is kind of like stuffed pike.
Fresh water fish.
Not so typical.
Oh, it is stuffed.
It's almost like, eggy a little bit.
It's the meat shredded or something
and just put it in the skin.
Yeah, because it's almost like a,
tastes like a pike omelet almost on the bottom.
Cheers, next one.
Does have like a honey nuttiness,
like a honey walnut taste to it.
This one is easier, easier to eat with the tangerine.
The moment has arrived.
It is stroganoff time, Russian stroganoff.
It is one of the most famous of all Russian dishes,
but at the same time, stroganoff is just classic.
It's just so good.
The presentation of the food matches.
It's, everything is delicate, everything is precise,
everything is perfectly dainty and organized on your plate.
Let's try the stroganoff first.
So beef stroganoff, what do you normally do?
Just eat some of the, oh, look at that cream sauce.
There's possibly mushrooms, sour cream and cream
with a light onions.
So soft.
Oh, wow, it's so good.
Look at the thickness of that cream sauce.
It's almost like melted cheese, it's so thick and wonderful.
And I'll try with some of the potatoes this time.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I could eat a basin of that stroganoff, it's so good.
Let's move over and try the chow next, okay.
Is that cheese?
Or sour cream?
Cheese and sour cream, maybe?
There's some shrimp on top, there's asparagus,
and I love this presentation, yeah.
It's a very red eye.
Oh, no, that's not the eye, that's like a berry.
It's like a little lingonberry or something.
The bones from here.
Ah, yeah, it's just like filet, but they saved the head.
I think that is cheese.
That just melts in your mouth, though.
Wow.
Trout is good, but stroganoff is just.
It's just stroganoff, you don't have to tell anything.
You're gonna, unbeatable.
The creaminess of that sauce will impress you
upon first lick.
Even a drip of that sauce has powers.
And you taste the sweetness of the onions,
the mushrooms, that light herb on top,
and the beef is just, it's perfect beef.
Feel free to try some salmon.
We're just gonna try Ying's salmon real fast.
Really good, though.
It's crusted in some kind of an herb,
like a pineapple fruit on top.
Sterlet is a traditional Russian Tsar's fish.
It's a, what?
Sterlet.
A sturgeon.
Like a sturgeon, but it's a river, yes.
Sturgeon.
Yeah.
Okay, so, I don't know what to say, so.
Even the space for the.
Absolutely stunning.
Dimitri is explaining to me,
this is the food of the Tars, the Russian kings,
but it is a freshwater sturgeon.
Sturgeon, sturgeon.
It is a sturgeon.
In Russian, it's called sterlet.
The whole base of it that holds the fish up
is made from rye bread,
and then it's on like a boat structure, almost.
And, wow, and it's stuffed with crab.
He said it's stuffed with crab.
And shrimp.
Okay, okay.
Okay, wow.
Nice.
Thank you.
This truly is a dish.
A dish fit for Russian royalty.
Russian kings, and it's stuffed with king crab
and shrimp in the center of it.
And then he served us mashed potato
and a horseradish gravy.
You can see the whole pieces of crab in there.
Yeah.
The crab in there.
The fish.
I'm done.
I stay here.
Oh, wow.
This one is so moist, and like,
the crab, you taste the crab and the shrimp aroma,
like, pouring into the meat.
And you're right about that sauce.
The horseradish sauce is so nice.
It provides so much flavor.
Southern Russia, and it was brought to Moscow
for the kings, for the royalty, right?
Yeah.
Because it is that special.
Very special.
You just help like a royal.
They are giving us the royal treatment here,
that's for sure.
Cranberries and sugar.
Cranberry with strawberry, and the caramel.
Legend of desserts.
In the end of the 18th century,
Napoleon Bonaparte tried to conquer Egypt.
After the glorious victories were taken,
he has ordered the soldiers to start and celebrate
three days and three nights.
He's accompanied by his good friend
and the court chief, Mr. Hasim.
Hasim decided to prepare a nice surprise for the Napoleon.
He made a huge dessert from crème brûlée,
like an edgy pyramid.
He protected caramel dome.
And, when dessert was present,
Napoleon has ordered to start some fireworks.
It's begun to melt.
Wow.
Everybody thought the dessert was destroyed,
but Napoleon decided to taste,
and he thinks that the combination
of the crème brûlée with the burnt caramel
is really delicious.
We were really trying to resist desserts,
and we said, no, no desserts,
but he insisted we had desserts,
and now we are very glad.
Caramel is, oh, the caramel is just solid on top.
Look at that.
Ah.
You get some of that cream,
some of that melted caramel and strawberries.
It's cold inside.
With the warm strawberries.
Yeah, yeah.
It's very sweet, but that contrast.
Yeah, crispy caramel, the soft crème brûlée,
the warm strawberry, and the cold crème brûlée inside.
And a legend to go with it.
Yeah, it was the best, the show was the best.
That was great, yeah.
You gotta eat the whole thing in one bite,
otherwise it will collapse.
It's full of liquid, right?
Yeah, it's full of juice, crème brûlée juice.
Gonna be my final bite, the cranberry.
Mm.
Oh, it's so tart.
Just a splash of flavors.
Very sour.
Liquid.
And then, again, the very thin layer of chocolate.
It's not too thick.
Yeah.
So it just collapses.
This is actually my favorite taste-wise dessert.
That's just a bed of just striped cranberries.
Mm.
Mostly sour and a little bitter, yeah.
Ending with a coffee and a chocolate medal.
Chocolate medal.
Oh, I don't wanna leave.
It's so warm and luxurious in here.
This was such a good meal.
Like, blown away by the service
and how they're just preserving this culture,
museum of a restaurant.
And the food, actually, I mean,
truly the food stands up to it for me.
Like, it's really amazingly good food.
Perfect place, perfect place.
And where else can you eat inside of a library
in an aristocratic Russian home in Moscow?
Only here.
Cheers.
What a meal.
Feeling a lot warmer now after having some stroganoff
and a sturgeon in my stomach.
But that was, first of all, the service was impeccable.
The decoration is unbeatable.
The food, seriously good Russian food.
From here, we're going on to the market.
To get to the market, we're at another metro station.
And this metro station is known for Soviet propaganda,
but also values, statues, and the values
of the Soviet society.
So there are some statues of families with kids
and others, so some important professions.
So lots of people, even as they come out of the train,
they touch the nose of the dog
because that sometimes brings good fortune.
It is really cool how every station in Moscow is different.
Every station has like a theme and is unique.
We jumped out of the metro at Tulskaya station,
I think it's called, and it's 4.30 in the afternoon,
already starting to get dark.
But right over there, that like dome.
Like circus.
Like a circus.
That's the market we're going to.
What's the name of the market?
Danilovskiy.
Okay, and one of the oldest markets in Moscow.
Yeah, for sure.
It's been renovated, but it still retains its heritage.
Russian farmer's market, you'll find everything here
from produce to spices to nuts and dried fruits
and fruits from all over the country as well as seafood.
There's salmon, there's fish,
there's all sorts of different,
you can buy caviar, you can buy gourmet ingredients,
you can buy everyday essentials,
and it's all in a very iconic structure,
dome structure with a sunroof on the top.
Kind of similar to the sunroof at the GUM,
but it's that same style, dome style,
and then just the whole market floor
full of delicious food and ingredients.
Tomato?
What do you recommend?
Green tomato?
Okay.
Thank you.
This one is a green tomato.
And the dill and garlic.
That way you taste.
Wonderful.
This one, lady, offers to try.
This one is the red tomato.
Yeah, it's more sweet because of the natural tomato,
but it's more soft as well,
not crunchy like the green tomato.
Thank you.
This one is more like a cherry tomato.
The perfect balance of sour and extremely juicy.
And these are like fresh pickles, right?
They're not very fermented yet.
Not yet sour, just salty and fresh.
How long does it take to cook cucumbers?
How many days?
Two days.
Just two days.
Just two days, and it's ready for you to eat.
I love it.
It just makes it more crispy.
Russian pickles are the best.
I agree with you.
Russian pickles are the best.
The garlic is very tasty.
Thank you.
This garlic is fermented with the beetroot.
Oh, that's why it's red, okay.
Yeah, that's why it turns red.
Same like this cabbage.
Yeah, it's really tasty.
Yeah, pickled jalapeno.
Let's try it from the garlic.
When the garlic is ready.
Ah, okay.
Let's try it from the garlic.
Ha ha ha.
A little bit spicy.
The market was fantastic.
It's a great place to walk around
to get a feel for ingredients.
From here, though, we have one more restaurant
that we're gonna go to,
and that's gonna wrap up this entire
ultimate Russian food tour of Moscow,
so we're on our way to the final.
Back near, actually, Red Square is just behind us,
but we're back in the center of Moscow
on our way to a restaurant for dinner.
So, the final restaurant that we're going to
is also a Soviet-style restaurant,
but it's more of a sit-down restaurant
with a menu, and you order,
and then it's also,
but what's also interesting about here
is it's housed in a Soviet apartment style.
So, dance parties.
Dance parties.
Oh, cool.
Oh, and this is, like, awesome.
We've got a private room upstairs.
That's awesome.
This is the special room, too.
Oh, yeah.
A lot of good-looking food.
And everything is served also
in the traditional Soviet dishes in the cups.
This is, like, an exact cup standard.
And the borscht has just arrived,
and borscht, it's, even in the menu,
it says it's a traditional Ukrainian dish recipe,
but during the Soviet period,
it became really popular throughout the entire Soviet Union
and still in Russia.
It's one of the most popular dishes,
so this is the perfect place to try a bowl of borscht.
There's cabbage in here,
and the beet root is what makes it red in color.
There's beef and a little bit of dill, I believe.
I love borscht.
Yeah, the flavor.
You taste the dill, you taste the cabbage,
like, gives it so much, like, body, and then that beef.
But, yeah, I think sour cream is a must.
Everything is better with sour cream in Russia.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The sour cream is a must.
That, like, just richens it up.
You can see that color, just the swirl.
This is the borscht swirl of sour cream.
Don't forget to try pampushka with garlic sauce.
Now it turns to almost a pink color with the sour cream.
Yeah, sour cream is a must.
Oh, yes.
That just creamifies it.
So I'll take that bread, dip it into that garlic,
and the garlic sauce is green, actually, in color.
Oh, it's like a herb in there, too.
Yeah, oh, it's, mm, mm-hmm.
Oh, the garlic, I think that is dill,
and it's like an oil.
Yeah, that's great.
So the restaurant is called Varenchna,
and this restaurant is really cool
for foreigners like me, for visitors,
because of the atmosphere,
but it's also great for locals, for Russians,
because it brings back memories, the nostalgia.
So the mimosa salad, it has potato,
layer of potato, layer of the preserved fish,
the carrots, and the shredded eggs.
It's held together with mayonnaise.
It's very mayonnaise-y, but you've got the contrast
of the sweet of the carrot, the fish, the egg on there,
and then, yeah, the mayonnaise is sticking it together.
And next up, we'll try the goulash.
Again, traditionally a Hungarian dish,
but served in a rye bread bowl,
and it almost looks like a stew of beef and potatoes.
Yeah, it's like a stew.
Like, the meat, potatoes, carrot,
it actually kind of has like a sweet carrot taste to it.
I like the dill topping a lot.
And it's so crusty, as well.
And something I just have to do
while we are here, while we are here.
Oh, what a desk.
Look at this desk.
And sitting right under the portrait of Brezhnev,
who was, he was one of the most respected leaders
of the Soviet Union.
Oh.
Okay, Mr. Mark.
Thank you, Dimitri.
Here's your glass of vodka.
You can't eat in Russia without a glass of vodka.
Awesome.
And they used to drink vodka from these cups.
So I can, oh, take a bite of goulash.
Then I might make a quick phone call.
Uh-oh, no reception.
Thank you very much.
So, this is made of cottage cheese.
It's baked in the oven.
And the topping is the sour cream.
Oh, that's delicious.
It's, yeah, it's a cheesecake.
It's like a cheesecake, but with no crust.
Oh, even better, it's just pure cheese.
That dinner was fantastic.
And again, the nostalgia for locals,
but as a visitor, the local food, the environment,
it was, yeah, very cool way to end
and to wrap up this entire Russian food tour of Moscow.
And it's been an ultimate tour.
What a day.
The different restaurants, the different experiences.
What a, that was a great day.
A huge thank you to Dimitri for taking the time
to show me around, to go with me.
Dimitri is so much fun to hang out with.
He's such a cool guy.
And he has a company called Value of the Moment.
I'll leave all his links, all his profiles
in the description box, but he offers tours,
especially in Murmansk and the northern part of Russia.
Thank you again, Dimitri, and thank you to everyone
who we met along the way today.
And I wanna say a big thank you to you
for watching this video.
Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you.
And if you're not already subscribed,
click subscribe and also click the little bell icon.
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Thanks again for watching, goodbye.
Back at the Red Square area.
Goodbye from Moscow.
Okay, I'm getting cold enough.
I'm getting too cold.
Okay, goodbye from Moscow.
See you on the next video.
