What Food Do Russians Eat? Typical Canteen in Russia

Hello and welcome to a sunny city of Novosibirsk. We are currently in the very center of Russia in the Siberian town called Novosibirsk which is the capital of Siberia and third biggest city in Russia. Right behind me you can see the Lenin square with a huge statue of Lenin, the worker and the farmer and the soldier guys. If we turn around we will see the opera and ballet theater. Actually you cannot see it right now behind these trees but I will go ahead and show it to you. Here it is and it's a huge building which was built right before the second world war and if I'm not mistaken it's the biggest theater in all Russia and even it was the biggest in the Soviet Union. Right now it's spring, it's beginning of April but you can still see some of the snow which didn't melt yet. If we turn around from here we can see the Lenin street right over there, it starts here and it goes all the way there and this big avenue is called or red avenue and it's the central street of the city, the biggest avenue I guess. And the view from the front. I believe every city in Russia still has this huge statue of Lenin and over there across the street it's also a really old building which was one of the first buildings actually of the city when it was built in the beginning of 20th century and right now there is a metro entrance right over there, the metro is called Lenin square as well and besides that there is a museum over there of our area of our Siberian district. Now it's 10.05 and the temperature today is not that bad, it's just zero degrees. Actually the recent days were quite warm, it was going even up to plus 10 degrees celsius but today it suddenly dropped again, but I mean it's much better than minus 20 still. Today I decided to take you to one of the Russian canteens, I actually haven't this experience in a very long time myself, probably in about 20 years to be honest, so I thought why not to go to a canteen today to check it out how it looks right now and well take you with me. And so I found one yesterday and it's located in the very center on the Red Avenue, it's called Sunny Day I believe and the reviews on the internet were very good, so I hope the food there gonna be tasty and as well they claim that their medium check is 300 rubles, so we will check this out as well. Also I was kind of fasting since yesterday afternoon, so I feel very hungry right now and I think I gonna eat a lot, so let's go there. By the way, check this out, it's some kind of sculpture here and here is written Novo Nikolaevsk, because did you know that Novosibirsk is a new name of our city and before that it was called Novo Nikolaevsk. Here we're passing the entrance to the metro as well, the mayor's office, the philharmonic, the old chapel. To get to our canteen we need to cross the street, this busy Red Avenue and the only way to do it here is to go underground. We almost arrived there, here it is, this orange sign, yeah, it's called Sunny Day, well the bathroom is looking so-so to be honest. All right, so here we should pick the tray and as well some cutlery, I'm not sure what I'm gonna eat, so I will take everything. Here first of all we can see the salads, the beet one, vinaigrette, olive, Greek one, I don't think I want a salad to be honest, so let's move forward. Here are drinks and cakes, compote, quicel, and some juices, and cakes, the honey one, cheesecake, something made of pistachios, something with strawberries, and rug. I think I will go for this strange drink with the berry called aplepico, I'm not sure how it is in English, I will check it out for you later. It's actually a warm drink, so you just pick up this glass and they after fill it with warm water. I'm thinking whether I should take a cake or not, because I already spotted some blini there as well, and they are also sweet, so maybe I would prefer some blini instead. Actually here they have blinchik with meat, there is like a meat rolled inside it, so the pancakes here are with sour cream and cottage cheese, with strawberries and cheese, banana and chocolate, and apple and cinnamon, and here are the sides for the main course, rice, another rice, some kind of pasta, and some sauces I guess, I'm not sure what it is. You know what guys, I think I'm taking the cake as well. Here they also have some fish and choices of different meats, hot lettuce and such. This is a bread that you can add to your food, and some lemon and some other sauces, a selection of teas, the drinks in the fridge, different juices and colors. Here they have some syrniki and some muffins. And what is this? A little bit of liver. Enough, enough. Here they also have sauces, this one looks like ketchup, then not sure what it is, then mayonnaise, something with curds, and I guess this is mustard. This is the spot to add the boiling water to your tea. And here is the interior of this canteen, and this is the table which I picked for myself. All right, now I'm ready to eat. All right guys, so here is everything that I ordered. First of all, it's of course a soup, a borscht, but for some reason it doesn't have sour cream, and I didn't spot it over there. Then for the second course I ordered rice with some liver in sour cream with onions, the beef cutleta, some sauces that I putted, the ketchup, adjika and some cream one. Then I ordered one pancake with strawberries and buko cheese, not sure what is it, we'll check it. And as well I am really hungry and so I ordered this pistachio cheesecake. And as a drink I ordered this tea, these little orange berries are called bugthorn, I just checked it out on the internet. So it has this bugthorn, then I believe it's a jam made of it as well, and some kind of greens and lemons, and well then I put the hot water there, and I'm actually curious to try it. And here is a deal guys, it was actually quite expensive in my opinion, but maybe usually people don't eat that much here, they would just take a soup and the second course, and I also took a pancake and the cake, and maybe that made it more expensive. So guys, let's try everything. First of course I will go with a soup, the borscht, Russian classics. Probably not the best borscht I've ever eaten, but it's quite okay. What I don't like about this borscht is that I can barely find any meat there, it almost completely consists of potatoes and cabbage and beets, without any meat spotted there. But anyway, it's nice to have a warm soup on this cold day. All right, now goes the second course, and I'm actually excited about this a lot. Not sure what I should start with, I think I will go with the liver. I've even done my hair to be more comfortable with eating, so the liver. The liver is all right, exactly as I expected it to be. Let's try it with rice, we'll put some sauces on my rice. Now let's try this beef patty that we call kotleta. It's not bad, but the taste in my opinion is kind of plain, it definitely lacks some spices. But if you dip it in sauces, it's all right. I will go ahead and finish it all and then get back to you. But before I do this, let's also try this strange tea that I never tried before. Guys, the tea is actually really good. I do love the tea. I managed to finish almost everything, now the best part, the pancake and the dessert. So I was wondering what I actually ordered. I think there is some kind of cream inside and some pieces of strawberries. Here goes the cream. So the blin is quite all right, but maybe it's because it's really hard to spoil a blin. Blin is always a good idea. Now let's try the last position, the cheesecake. The cake is really nice, maybe it's even the best position out of everything that I had today. It's really soft and tender with this gentle pistachio taste. All right guys, so I'm done with the food and that's what I ate out of it. To be honest, I didn't finish the soup. I didn't really like that it had no meat in it and it kind of was pointless at this point. Then I almost finished the second course. It was all right, I would say not the greatest food I ever ate, but it was quite okay. And then there was a pancake here. It was also an okay pancake, I would say not the best one, but quite edible. And the best one I think was actually this cake, the pistachio cheesecake that was just delicious. And I'm still drinking my tea and now I gonna as well tell you how much everything costed for me. So all together I spent 755 rubles and I find this quite expensive for the canteen. But now I'm thinking that this is probably because I ordered kind of two main courses, I mean two types of meat. It was liver and the kotleta. It was kind of double the food, at least that's how it is reflected in the bill. Okay, let's go from the start. Borscht with meat. It's written here borscht with meat, but there was like zero meat and it was 250 grams. It costed 90 rubles. Basmati rice 70 rubles. Beef kotleta was 140 rubles. Stroganoff liver was 170 rubles. Then the strawberry and buko pancake aka blin was 65 rubles. Pistachio cheesecake was 95 rubles. And then they also counted separately all the sauces that I take. So I didn't know about this, if I knew I would not take this many sauces as well. And each of them costed 20 rubles. And also I had a tea and the tea costed 65 rubles. So I believe if I would skip either a blin or a cake and would go with only one meat type and probably just one sauce, maybe it would really cost me about 300 something, as was stated on the internet that the medium bill is about 300. But well, I ordered too much and well, that's what I paid. The tea was a hit though, I should try and make one at home like this. Wow, it's still so sunny outside. Well, guys, I think I should summarize my overall experience in Pau. And so my general impression of the canteen was, I guess, I can call it was okay. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was just medium. I think on the scale from 1 to 5, when 5 is the best and 1 is the worst, I would give it about 3.5, maybe 3.8 maximum. Honestly, probably for canteen food was not that bad. It was kind of even good, I would say, especially the sweet part of it. But considering I spent on everything 755 rubles, I think that was quite too expensive for canteen prices. I actually was expecting the prices to be a little lower. Maybe it's just because it's this type of canteen. There is actually a chain of them, I checked, and they are only present here in Novosibirsk, and in other two Siberian cities, and in St. Petersburg. So it's not only Siberian, but also not the all-Russian chain. For some reason, it is only in Siberia and St. Petersburg. But here this chain, this Sunny Day, is very popular. You can find it in each area, and it means people like to go there. So to summarize it all, my experience was quite alright. I even enjoyed some of the positions of the food, not all of them, but part of them. But if you ask me if I would return there, probably not. Because I think I would find better ways to spend 755 rubles. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I hope you enjoyed this video. I enjoyed a lot trying new experiences. And I hope I will see you soon in my next videos during my other adventures. Bye!