Eat Like Ushi

Idiot is an unusual name for any type of business including a restaurant. It's actually a reference to Dostoevsky - it's quite common that places in Russia have reference to a writer or poet and if you are ignorant (like me) you wouldn't even know it.

Inside is a lovely cosy restaurant and there were many families inside. Books and shelves filled the place and my chosen dining area looked like the perfect study place, where someone like Dostoevsky could have done his best work. It's supposedly well known for being vegetarian (pescetarian to be precise) but some meats have since popped up to cater to everybody.

A ridiculous amount of bread with several swirls of butter were brought to start with. Maybe it's a set amount but for 1 person (as much as I like carbohydrates) even that was excessive. After sampling a bit I saved them more for the soup.

- Borsch with sour cream - there's a hot and a cold option. Having tried both I'm much more partial to a piping hot bowl with sour cream and vegetables riddled through. The flavour was a little less deep considering no meat stock but still very good;
- Beef stroganoff with wild mushrooms, onions, cream sauce (with mashed potatoes, salty cucumbers, chopped parsley) - quite an unattractive dish with reasonable beef, creamy sauce and mash. The cucumber added variety and the "chopped parsley" is a bit of an exaggeration.

I'll happily go back and have the borsch and try some other dishes. In particular it really is the relaxing and well designed setting that would bring me back inside another world so unexpected from the veneer.

After a long night out of visiting most of St. Petersburg's beautiful sights for the second or third time (but the first under White Night aura and twilight), I needed a snack. Most cities would serve up some kind of kebab or equivalent and it would have been great if I came prepared and knew where to go.

I had to settle for a fast food burger joint I had never heard before. I've since discovered Carl's Jr is an American chain. Before I knew that I thought the food looked very similar to McDonald's. It was serviceable for 4am...

I'd woken up really early that morning to visit The Hermitage. I made it before the gates opened and before any crowds (almost anyone) had arrived. Or so I thought - once inside the main gates there was a slow moving queue waiting for the next set of doors. However the Winter Palace was the most opulent of any I've seen anywhere in the world and memories and photos are what I have to remember it by.

It wasn't surprising that I spent a long time here and didn't get out until late afternoon for lunch. Teplo was known for potato pancakes, pastries and desserts, and just down the road from the hostel, but the time of day meant it was nice and peaceful inside.

I settled for the Potato Pancakes (with Buko cheese, red caviar and smoked salmon). This was a really excellent plate with the crisp pancakes (or rosti perhaps?) complemented well by the cheese, smoked fish and the potent salty caviar. Caviar from Russia and Scandinavia is really like none I've had in Australia and Asia (including Japan) and this was a shining example.

My first dinner in St. Petersburg was solo (not unusual at all for me).

After many different variations on Russian cuisine, I was interested in branching out and trying some of the bordering foods. Georgian was one of these and I had read a lot about a restaurant closeby to my hostel Soul Kitchen Junior (which has to be the best hostel I've ever seen in the world). This restaurant was also 24 hour (not that it mattered to me) and a nice relaxing lounge feel.

The specialty (from the name of the restaurant) is kharcho - a traditional Georgian meat soup. This one was cooked with veal meat, rice, vegetables and spices and was lovely and warming.

I also couldn't resist Aunt Elisa's khachapuri (stuffed with Suluguni cheese) which was essentially a thick crusted delicious cheese pizza. It was fantastic and huge but unfortunately I could only eat a few slices before leaving the rest for the restaurant staff.

One of the downsides of eating alone - I don't like waste but sometimes my greed and enthusiasm means I have to stuff myself or sacrifice. In hindsight I probably should've taken the rest away.

Of all the places I ate in Moscow, the Golden Ring and St. Petersburg on this trip, Khochu Kharcho is the one I look most forward to returning to. A great meal and then exploring the city under the White Nights.

After visiting the beautiful store in Moscow a week earlier (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/eliseevskiy-moscow-06-2013), my final morning in St. Petersburg was torn between two things - having breakfast at Zoom Cafe (known for borsch, vegetables au gratin and meatballs) or a dash to Eliseevskiy to buy some caviar.

Yes I decided to impulse buy and get some caviar. I ended up with the second highest grade Osetra (as the highest Beluga and Sterlet weren't available and may have even been illegal at that point) and some small samples of various vodka to bring back to London. The caviar is also advertised as Malossol meaning minimally salted and highest quality.

Of the vodkas, the best (as judged by 3 of us several weeks later) was Vodka Царская Золотая or (translated by a Russian friend to) Tsar's Gold Vodka. It's the red/green/yellow bottle in the photo surrounding one section of caviar. Unfortunately it's not available anywhere outside of St. Petersburg Eliseevskiy. I'll have to wait until next time.

Eliseevskiy in St. Petersburg was much more interesting for food (although less ornate) than Moscow with people sitting there drinking coffee and eating sweets, oysters (from France) for sale, as well as generally a lot of items to pick from.

After enjoying the decor of the famous Cafe Pushkin, my attentions turned to my other food interest - the supermarket. Eliseevskiy is more of a gourmet store particularly well known for its adornments more than the food.

I spent a good while in here, taking photos, admiring the layout and also looking at the food items naturally. I didn't end up buying anything although I came closest to succumbing to the crab and lobster meat in jars.

There's also a branch in St. Petersburg (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/yeliseevskiy-gastronom-st-petersburg-06-2013).

I'd actually heard of Stolle from the St. Petersburg part of my Rough Guide. The specialty pies of salmon and seasonal berries sounded excellent. Unfortunately there was already a host of other places there that I wanted to eat. A lot of my preparations for solo travelling in the Golden Ring came from the In Your Pocket guide and I was really excited to see Stolle was listed there too. Other than Sobraniye and Imedi cafe, there weren't any other places that interested me for the brief 24 hours I was there, so this was a good snack to go for during the mid-afternoon whilst wandering around the sites.

- Rybnik fish pie;
- Season berry pie;
- Kulyebaka with meat.

The first two were the recommended choices for the St. Petersburg part of the Rough Guide. The last was to round out the meal. The crusts were firm and the breads soft and the fillings nice too. The fish was more pleasurable than the meat and the sweet berries rounded off the mini meal. 

I wasn't really sure what to eat for my last meal in Moscow. After returning from the Golden Ring, I had a ticket booked on the midnight train Red Arrow to St. Petersburg (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/red-arrow-train-moscow-and-st-petersburg-06-2013). This meant that after I arrived back at my original hostel to pick up my bags, I didn't really have a lot to do, nor the enthusiasm to venture far.

I ended up wandering up and down the streets (as I often do when I can't decide what to have) until settling on Teremok. The ads outside for cheap food (as I'd been quite liberal with spending along the Golden Ring) coupled with seeing a few solo people enjoying (relatively) their meals and not having any other preferences made the decision.

Teremok specialise in blini (pancakes) and do them well. Meat and melted cheese are encased in soft but slightly crisp coatings. I added an extra of pelmeni (dumplings) to complete the carbohydrate and protein meal. It wasn't the best meal I'd had, but it was enough to keep me sated for the journey ahead.

Forest Hill - I haven't been there for probably over 10 years. After viewing a property for sale nearby in Box Hill, it was time for lunch. Something fast - maybe noodles? I was surprised that a place called India Delights would serve excellent Malaysian noodles, but that's exactly what I found.

- Mixed plate with biryani rice $11 - extraordinary value with selections from the serving basin. I chose a mildly sweet and tender beef rendang, spicy mutton curry, eggplant masala and pumpkin curry;
- Mamak mee goreng $9.5 - a pretty good dish and satisfying;
- Combination hor fun $11 - a heap of runny egg sauce topping flat rice noodles, prawns, squid and more. Really really good version served (when requested) with green chilli in soy vinegar;
- Indian rojak $10 - really thick and tasty peanut sauce smothering fried dough (which would have been better crispier), beancurd, bean sprouts, potato, cucumber and boiled egg.

From the menu and dishes I assume the chefs are Indian ethnicity from Malaysia. I'll have to try the roti and murtabak next time as well as the fried chicken and pastries.

For some reason I've never been to Port Melbourne. And that's despite one of my best friends living there for a while. Funnily enough my first visit to the area wasn't because of her.

It was a brunch catchup with a friend not seen for probably nearly 10 years and her suggestion to come to the area.

- Baked Eggs – 2 x Eggs, Sugo (Italian Tomato Sauce), Chorizo $17
- Moulin Noir Big Breakfast w/ Egg, Bacon, Chorizo, Mushroom, Tomato & Hash Brown $23

The highlights were good bread, tasty chorizo and crispy hash browns (the extra side was too much in the end). All in all a nice breakfast but nothing that seemed special compared to the haunts more local to me.