Praise to Russian food

When you first come to Russia you usually loose some weight: shopping is pure agony, vegetables at the shops are more or less suspicious and big supermarkets are either expencive, far away or at suburbans. The university food is bar of Snickers or cold salad while in Finland I got used to super good, state-subsidized meals.

But then after a month or two when you uncover the secrets of Diksi (local chain of corner shops), where you have to 

queue (they teach queuing at Russian class in some universities), pay, shop and behave in a specific way (which includes babushkas passing you in line and shop assistants yelling at you); when you discover the stuff it's worth paying; and when - this is the best - you discover the restaurants St. Petersburg has to offer, you get the lost pounds back, unfortunately with interests usually.

The worst thing you can do in Russia, is to try to eat the same food you eat home. Don't even try that, you'll fail, loose your money and became angry because of the shit

ty food. Of course you can find pasta, pizza and other all universal dishes from local shops here but the best dishes are the ones you can only find in Russia.

Naturally there are world-famous blini's with all sort of original, exotic or weird fillings (meat, caviar, smetana, jam, chocolate, roe, vegetables etc.) but the best blinis are the most simple ones: with potato, cabbage or/and mushroom. It's amazing what Russian's can do with the simple and cheap ingredients! (well, they had some difficult moments in the

ir history when they had to learn to eat only potatoes, cabbage and onions) Same the-simpler-the-better-principle goes with other Russian national dishes as well: pelmenis, varenikis and pirozhkis are best when they're filled simply with potatoes or mushrooms.

Russian food is not only delicious, but also cheap, fast and easy to prepare (at least the half-ready-made ones). Blini's you can buy from the kiosk which tempt you in ev

ery corner of the city, pirozhkis are sold in bakeries and cafes, pelmeni's on the other ha

nd are best to prepare home: just boil water and throw frozen pelmeni's in for couple of minutes, and a vot, dinner is ready.

If you are against fast food (even the delicious, non-mass-produced Russian one) and want to start the cooking from the scratch, begin by going to market place (rynok). If you want to find good veggies or something else than vacuum-packed meat, you have to skip soviet-style produktis and make the effort to shop at rynok. (The best one is near Vladimirskaya metro station, where you can also buy part of your purchase from the babushkas who

 have their shadow-market next to the official market hall). At the rynok you can buy all the (boring) normal stuff but also Russian delicates like tvorog (something between milk and cheese), marinated tomatoes and cucumbers, cheese (especially the smoked cheese is worth testing), roots of garlic, home-made chili-paste, pickles, Russian chocolate, tens of different kind of honeys and many variations of sauerkraut.

I love all the items mentions above, but sauerkraut has became my favorite. During the past weeks I have eaten it cold, hot, medium, fried, in a soup, with pasta-sauce and blended with noodles. Sauerkraut costs almost nothing, you can buy it in every shop a

nd it's super-super 

healthy and above all, it's really good! In addition to sauerkraut I have also sneaked smetana into my daily diet. In Finland I consume smetana about twice a year (laskiainen ja joulu) but hear it somehow belongs to everything I eat. In Finland I consider smetana to be unhealthy, but here I feel that it makes me good, so maybe you just need more energy in Russian life than in the life in Nordic welfare state. Or maybe I just loose control here.

You can keep your stomach and mind relatively happy with the fast food and home-cooking, but the restaurants here in St.

Petersburg blow your mind. The goods ones are not on the main streets or near Hermitage, so here are some self-discovered rules you have to obey in your food-searching-process in Russia.

Rule number one; never go to a restaurant, which claims to be a restaurant (pectopah); instead go to cafe, bar, tavern or even club. The best food is always there which doesn't scream restaurants! Rule number two: the shabbier place, the better food. If it shines, don't fall for it. Rule number three: try ethnic restaurants in Russia, even if the Russian restaurants are goodm the ethnic ones are something special!

The top of exotic experiences is Georgian food that has overwhelmed each of my friends who has had the opportunity to taste piece of khatsapuri or lobio. You cannot really find Georgian restaurants in the Western world so in Russia you definitely have try them at least once. I'm like a khatsapuri-missionary here because I always drag my friends (and friends of 

friends) to try the Georgian food at Lagidze (our favorite, located close to circus, at Fontanka) where the waitresses already know me there and greed me by laughter because I'm like a tourist guide every time I go there "you have to try this, let's order this, don't read the menu, I'll decide etc.". Maybe I go there too often, but the food is just fantastic. Especially before hard night out you need the amount of energy khatsapuri, few beers and 50g of vodka gives you; after that set you can stay up all night (and for example meet nice Swiss boys).

The other good ethnics here are sushi-places (with happy hour between midnight and 5am, oh mama) and Chinese restaurants (Tan Zhen) which is my other hangout after Lagidze. Chinese food is somehow more Chinese here than in Finnish Chinese restaurants where food has been compromised to adapt the Finnish taste (read: no taste or spice, everything is just covered with sweet and sour sauce). And the best thing in Georgian, Chinese and sushi restaurants here is the tradition to order food together. Portions are planned to be shared so instead of eating whole plate of one dish you can try many different things and still get satisfied. I think you even eat less when you share the food because nobody wants to look too greed over a shared dinner. Hah, another tradition I want to take back to Finland!

So altogether, don't believe those suckers who speak shit about Russian cuisine; they have only been eating at McDonald's and PizzaHut at Nevski Prospekt (unfortunately many Finnish exchange students do that).

Instead go to the shabbiest cafe on a semi-shabby street and you will get the best food of your life!