let's eat. maybe.

Food is definitely proving to be the biggest adventure and challenge for me in Russia (as I expected). Meat and milk are the biggest part of any diet or menu here, and vegetables are rarely seen as more than a "garnish". Fortunately, I've found some luck here and there with good restaurants and I've tried to get creative with my grocery shopping - where there are entire aisles devoted to crackers, bread, alcohol, chocolate, and tea. Not exactly the easiest to build a good meal from.

For our first group dinner last week we went to a Dagestani restaurant, which is in South Russia - I think someone said it was near the Chechen border? Close to Georgia and those countries. We were going for Georgian food but the metro stop was closed near the restaurant we had planned on.

I got a carrot/garlic salad which was literally a bowl full of carrots, dressing, and garlic. But it was easily one of my favorite dishes so far. delicious!

I ordered chubu (I don't know how to spell it in english?) for my main dish, which is a specialty of the area. It's a huge flat piece of thin dough stuffed with different fillings - their options were meat, pumpkin, and potato with tvorog. Tvorog is this cottage cheese/cream cheese sort of creation that's popular in many foods. As a meal though, the chubu was pretty unsatisfying. I felt like I had eaten a bunch of greasy, cheesy bread. Which I did. I wouldn't recommend it.

I found this cafe (Zerno Istiny) which had free wi-fi and a pretty good veggie menu, but it's too far away to become a regular there. I had some great miso soup and a veggie roll - Japanese cuisine is so incredibly popular here, that many restaurants have added a separate Japanese menu to the back of theirs. Kind of weird when you're in a Russian cafe, Italian restaurant, etc. But it's totally the norm. You can get sushi ANYWHERE.

Also fun: canned cocktails. I've have gin&tonic in a can, which is surprisingly good. Just stay away from the fruity ones, you can feel the headache with just a whiff of it. I'm still looking for canned champagne, which I hear you can get anywhere...

ahhh, hummus. can't go wrong.

And the biggest success in my Russian cuisine thus far (and probably will remain the most important discovery): BOTANICA.

A completely vegetarian restaurant with such a huge menu (which is also available in English, for when my brain is too tired) I wanted to cry I was so happy. Not to mention they have a deck in the cutest little square, and they provide you with blankets when it's chilly. (!)

Asian stir-fry! A dish with tofu that DOESN'T have meat! (At a Chinese restaurant we tried, I found a tofu dish but it also had pork?)

It was a little heavy on the sauce, but was honestly the best meal I can remember. fresh, flavorful, and a combination of ingredients that is so unbeatable. and so impossible to find here.

Joel had ratatouille - all vegetables, only vegetables, as a MAIN DISH! unthinkable.

Today I went to the huge Russian version of Wal-Mart or Costco, called O'Kei (how they spell OK) because my conversation teacher told me I could find peanut butter and soy milk there. Found peanut butter, but still no soy milk. There are 3 other locations of O'Kei, and I will scour all of them until I find it! This is such a mission now, I just can't give up.

We have a 3-day weekend because tomorrow is Den Rossii - Russia Day! No one is really sure how people celebrate it. It's still a pretty young holiday, and I don't think it's become full of tradition or any specific form of celebration. But we don't have class, and I hope it's as beautiful as today. The sun finally showed up! I'm planning on the Hermitage on Saturday (yeeeessssss!!!) and Hannah and I have tickets for Don Quixote at the Mariinksi Theater on Sunday evening. I can't wait to see the ballet, I haven't been in years - and what better place to attend than in St. Petersburg???