Cycle 5 – Item 282

14 (Tue) October 2014

Pancakes with Rabbit

3.5

at Shinok

-Central Administrative, Moscow, Russia-

solo

Mission to Russia (Day 4)

• • Day 1 (5.279 Assorted Hot Mezzah)
  • Day 2 (5.280 Black Sturgeon Caviar with Mini Pancakes)
  • Day 3 (5.281 Russian Goodies)
  • Day 4 (5.282 Pancakes with Rabbit)
  • Day 5 (5.283 Kyurza)
  • Day 6 (5.284 Borscht)
  • Day 7 (5.285 Red Mullet Fillets with Couscous)
  • Day 8 (5.286 Chili Mango Prawns with Asparagus Couscous)

In Moscow.  Here to provide technical/legal support to Member States from the Western Pacific at the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP6) of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).  Very exciting, both as the biggest tobacco control event of the year, and my first mission outside our region.

Shinok is a Ukrainian restaurant.  Modernized peasant fare, dumplings and cutlets and the like, fancifully presented.  The dining hall includes a faux barnyard, stocked with live animals, and live humans.

I’m aware that dining at a Ukrainian restaurant in Russia during these tumultuous times does carry a sense of irony.  GMTD embraces each cuisine from every country throughout this great planet of ours without regard for geopolitics.

The countries in eastern/northeastern Europe and central Asia, including Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Stans, all former members of the USSR, seem to share a broad regional culinary comrade-rie.  While styles probably differ here and there, nuances that my untrained palate can’t (yet) detect, the dishes generally overlap, items like stroganov, borscht, shashlyk, plov, etc.

Shtick aside, the food was hit and miss.

Pancakes with Rabbit = hit.  Minced rabbit, sautéed with onions and herbs in a light/rich butter sauce, wrapped in a pair of thin pancakes, pan-fried to golden perfection, served on a bed of perfectly creamy mashed potatoes.  Sublime.

Chicken Kiev = miss.  A thin layer of breast meat, rolled into a cone shape, filled with soupy sauce (bland, as if comprised solely of the chicken juices), breaded, deep-fried, served sitting awkwardly on a wedge of corn bread (dry), along with cooked berries (god, how I hate fruit in my food).  None of it worked.

Don’t know which dish is more representative of the kitchen’s expertise.

(See also BOOZE)

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN RUSSIA)