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www.groovekorea.com / September 2014 50 FOOD & DRINK Edited by Shelley DeWees (shelley@groovekorea.com) want fRies with that pLov? Directly down the street from Samarqand is My Friend, a spa- cious old restaurant with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, a TV playing Russian documentaries in the background and a beefy Uzbek-Korean waiter who said the customers are very eclectic and international — mostly Russians and Central Asians, like him- self. We ordered borscht, salad, beef stroganoff and plov (a kind of rice pilaf). Stepping outside tradition, our table ordered fries with the beef stroganoff instead of mashed potatoes, and this proved to be a great choice: The beef was soft and tender, the fries crispy and our plov, served alongside, was tasty too. The yellow rice with chunks of well-marinated lamb and a bit of cumin was enjoyed by most of the group, but Jeong thought it was a bit dry and in need of more flavor. The side salad was made with cucumber, tomato and onions, and seasoned with dill, paprika and chili flakes. “Love- ly and bright,” Butler said. “Very fresh.” The borscht, however, was another issue. Though everyone agreed it tasted good — some thought it was excellent — there was universal disgust when the bowl came topped with mayon- naise instead of sour cream. It can traditionally be served both ways in Russia (it’s apparently a matter of personal taste), but we were all clearly on the losing side of that argument. We ate our fill and washed it down with a quarter liter of Siberian Five Lakes vodka. That seemed to help smooth things over. a waLk on the nuanced side Gostiny Dvor was our last stop. Located above a minimart where you can get all kinds of Baltika beers (see info box for more), not to mention bras, cheese and secondhand Russian novels, Gostiny Dvor looks like your Russian grandmother’s dining room. There are white tablecloths with paper doilies, heavy polished silverware and a big television (the same Russian chainsaw commercial came on at least three times during our sitting). We ordered ak- rorha, salanka and myaso po-kapitanski, all of which were new and different to us. Akrorha is a yogurt-based cold summer soup with cucumber, dill, green onions, potato, egg and, most noticeably, ham: in Wright’s words, “potato salad in a soup.” Though it was tasty and refresh- ing in the heat, the strong-tasting ham overwhelmed the other flavors when you got a bite of it — still, a bit of an adventure all the same. The salanka turned out to be a hot soup, similar to borscht, with sausage, carrot, green onions, olives, sour cream and lemon. This one was dubbed “a sandwich in a soup” by our group. It was tasty, but the next dish was even better: myaso po-kapitanski (literally meaning “captain’s meat”). This pork, cheese, potato and chive mashup looked like a deconstructed shepherd’s pie and tasted extra hearty, with the “awesome” verdict being handed out by all. Butler felt that overall the food at Gostiny Dvor was more subtle, and that everything was a bit more nuanced and balanced com- pared to the other restaurants. “This is more a place to have a nice meal,” she explained, “not where you would go to get drunk.” “I like the ambience here,” Jeong said. “Very classic.” It could have used individual dinnerware sets, though, as everyone was reaching over everyone else to dig into the communal plates. Tatiana Babaskina, our guide for the day, found herself pleas- antly surprised by the quality of our meal. She’s lived in Seoul for 15 years — splitting her time between Korea and London for the last six — and gave us a crash course in Russian food while we supped. “A normal Russian meal is served in three courses,” she ex- plained. “A hot soup (usually borscht or shchi) as the first course, meat with either potatoes or macaroni as the second course and finally tea or a fruit (kompot) drink with dessert as the last course.” The food in Little Russia was, she said, “saltier and more authen- tically Russian than what I’m normally used to. Living in Korea, I started ‘Koreanizing’ my Russian meals, adding more spices and using different vegetables for preparing certain meals, like making borscht with tomatoes instead of beets.” But here, she got the real stuff. “I think most Koreans don’t know about Russian food at all,” Jeong said. “It was my first time, but it tasted very good –– there was nothing weird. I’d like to come to this area again with my Korean friends.” A good idea would be to visit sooner rather than later, while the experience is still authentic. we got fRies with the beef stRoganoff instead of mashed potatoes, which pRoved to be a gReat choice: the beef was soft and tendeR, the fRies cRispy and ouR pLov, seRved aLongside, was tasty too.