Katia's Russian Tea Room

On Friday, due to a combination of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" and a bit of eastern block family nostalgia, Julia wanted Russian food. Some Yelp searching landed Katia's Russian Tea Room as the most likely spot, and that's how we ended up at the corner table, with no one else in the restaurant, at 7pm on a Friday.

I always have some doubts upon entering a completely empty restaurant (I'd like to point out that it remained completely empty until another couple arrived just as we were leaving). But we were set in our conviction to cabbage, so we sat down and examined the menu.

As it turns out, Russian food is quite similar to most other Eastern/Northern European cuisines. Lots of potatoes, various dumplings, cabbage, pickled stuff...

We started with some Potato Vareniki and a plate of straight up dill pickles as appetizers. The dills were delicious. Some of the best pickles I've had recently and possibly the highlight of the meal. The Vareniki are little potato dumplings, crescent shaped, with sauteed onions and sour cream on top. There were a LOT of them. Probably too many for an appetizer for two of us. But we ate them all anyway, so they must have been pretty good.

For our entrees, Julia ordered the Golubtsi and I had Kotlety Pozharski. The golubtsi is ground beef wrapped in cabbage, and drenched with a Tomato sauce. The Kotlety are ground chicken cutlets, breaded and fried. Sort of like a large chicken nugget, really. Both dishes were good, but not amazing. Not must-go-back-for-those type dishes.

We ordered a Napoleon for dessert, which led to a discussion of whether or not Napoleon attacked Russia (he did) and if so what happened to him there (he did not fare well) and why that might result in the dessert (no relation). Once the dessert came, we pretty much forgot all of that and enjoyed the delicious pastry and custard combo. The fruit compote on the side was a nice addition as it reminded Julia of the compote her mother makes. Happy end to a happy meal.

One other item of note was the beer list. Most of the beers were made by the same Russain brewery, Baltika. The beers don't have names, just numbers. So we were faced with:
Baltika 1
Baltika 2
Baltika 3
Etc.

I believe I went with a Baltika 5, which ended up being a golden lager, while Julia had the 4, which was a dark (although they called it "amber") lager. She chose wisely, in case you're ever faced with the same decision.