Jazz Crossroads

Jazz Crossroads is a small hostel with a nice restaurant and cozy cafe.

They don't  serve exquisite food but fine enough for the place and it's  name. In the evenings they have live band who usually plays jazz music of course. At daytime, they serve business lunch for office workers around the area and the cafe is open all day long. 

This is pancake stuffed with ground beef. It's another favorite of mine next to goluptse. It is usually served with sour cream.

Vareniki is some kind of a dumpling but with mashed potato inside, aldo served with sour cream.

Yoshiki. It's some kind of a meatballs with rice and spices. I don't really know how they cook it but it comes with mashed potato and sour cream again.

Cirnik. It's  a dessert made of cottage cheese-fried or baked? ...maybe :) I 'm sorry I didn't  really asked how it was made but I loved it. It comes with condensed milk or jam. I have chosen condensed milk.

It is not an expensive place to dine in. For two people's lunch, we only paid about  $13.

And for an interior like this, it was totally inexpensive I'd say.

That's how the place looks like from across the road. It's an old living place where Salvador Dali's (Spanish painter) wife & family used to live long time ago.

Please excuse the (bad) quality of pictures, they were taken from mobile phone.

Maslenitsa

Pancake Festival

The holiday dates back to pagan times when folks would bade farewell to winter and welcome spring. Maslenitsa has both pagan and Christian ancestry. 

Pagan's was celebrated on the vernal equinox day.

Christian's on the week preceding the Lent.

Maslenitsa, derived from the word maslo which means butter or oil in Russian owes its existence to the tradition of making pancakes, blini in Russian.  The holiday therefore involves a great deal of pancakes. 

There are different sorts. From plain to those with toppings or stuffed with, cottage cheese, sour cream, cheese, jam, condensed milk, meat, fish, vegetables, mushroom and caviar. My favorites ones are those which are stuffed with ground meat and the ones stuffed with boiled condensed milk. I love them and believe me I won't  exchange them with caviar. 

The holiday also involves a lot of fun. Lots of eating, drinking and festivity games for both adults and children. 

Maslenitsa is however not only about merry-making. There is a schedule of activities celebrated during a week. Here's a quick peek on that: 

Monday: Welcoming.

- ice-hills, seesaws and other mess for the games are created

- assembling the Maslenitsa doll out of straw and old woman's clothing

- (traditionally) the rich starts baking pancakes on this day while the poor, only on Thursday or Friday

(you can read about that here)

Tuesday: Day of Games

- sleighrides, home to home surprise of on-the-spot performances, etc.

- fun & mischief falls on this day

Wednesday: Regalling, the Sweet Tooth day

- feast on houses with blini and other dishes

- son-in-laws would visit to enjoy their mother-in-laws pancakes

Thursday: Revelry 

- broad Maslenitsa begins, highlights & climax of the game

- (traditionally) fist-fights happen on this day- it said to commemmorate Russian military history 

"Never hit a man when he is down" is a Russian proverb which roots from the holiday of Maslenitsa. 

I asked my Russian friends if they still practise such "game" nowadays. They said no. Not all of them are happy about this specific "game" though they recognize its origins and the significance of it in their history. 

I've first come along with this when I watched the film "Barber of Siberia".  It was an old, good movie.  

Friday: Mother-in-laws Eve

- a mother-in-law, with all her kind is invited to a son-in-laws home for a treat

I find this fun :) please read here if you want to know how is it all done

Saturday: Sister-in-laws Gathering

- young wives would invite suster-in-laws 

Sunday: Forgiveness Day

The title itself is self-explanatory. This is one very  interesting part of the festival. You can read details of it here.

The festival commences with the burning of Lady Maslenitsa (the doll).

It then the first day of Lent. Clean Monday, which ws considered the day of purification and fast forbidden foods.

If you want to read more details about the festival, please click the link below: Maslenitsa, Russia

(with pictures from the internet and source of information from russiapedia)

I'm  linking this post to:

Our World Tuesday

and WATW

Local Dining

It is called голубцы (goluptse) - one of my favorite Russian dish. It is made up of cabbage with ground meat and rice as kind of filling. I don't  really know how it is made but I  think it's  kinda poached. It is ususlly served with a sour cream,  greens and carrots on the side. 

This green garnishing is called "okrop". Dill in English. I'm not an expert to speak about this but as I know, it's some kind of herb. Many foreigners actually don't  like when it's  added on food especially in soup. They say it spoils the delicious taste of Russian food. I must admit that I used to be one of those who hated it. I'd scoop it out of my soup or at times, I simply won't eat my soup. But recently, I think starting late 2014, I  started eating my my food with okrop. I didn't  mind it being there. I noticed that it gives some kind of a fresh taste on the the food. I still won't  be begging for it but now, I can eat soup or something else with it.

The next dish is more primitive. Meatballs and mashed potato with tomato sauce. I like it too but not my favorite.

Triogolnik in Russian language. I call it tricon. It's Tatar food in fact. I mentioned to you before that the city I'm living in is in the Republic of Tatarstan (one of the many republics in the Russian Federation). Eshpeshmak is the local name of this baked good. It has ground beef, potato and onion inside. I like it more when it's juicy. Just before serving they insert a bit of beef broth so the filling isn't  dry.

For all these, we only paid 246 Rubles which is equivalent to $4.25. It's cheap for a good healthy dining.

The place wasn't  the most classy. It wasn't  a restaurant. In Russia, they only call an eating place a restaurant when you pay for about a hundred dollars for a person's meal. Unlike in McDonald's when the staff welcomes you with a phrase "Welcome to McDonald's restaurant".

So the place we ate is called cafeteria where usually local food served is cooked by local women known for their best cooking.

I have no problem with that...as long as the place is clean and the food is good. In this case, it was more than just worth it. Burp! :)