saturday - part 3

after the theatre we went to a restaurant "Europa" which later on will be referred to as Russian restaurant.

seriously - waiters spoke english, pole, and russian - well were supposed to speak :) our waiter looked very american so i decided not to give him a hard time. as we entered the atmosphere was anything but american. the music, the design, the attitude of the staff. at first we had to wait for a table so we sat at a bar. the barman was funny - older man. i decided to have some wine. he said "cherni?" (which means 'black' in bad russian) i said "no. krasnoe" (means red). he said he doesn't speak russian but speaks poll. i said my grandpa was poll but i speak russian. he said he was actually italian :))

then we got our table... and ... mmmm i wanted this so badly - especially after i read Mary's post about.. pelmeni. oh god especially since she posted photos she got me soooo envious.. and they had it on the menu! then i looked for "olivie". couldn't find it but found "russian salad" on the menu list and gave it a shot. good girl - it turned out to be olivie itself :D :D which Michael liked too.

now pelmeni part wasn't so good - the meatball inside was really tiny, and the sauce was not just sour-cream but some sauce with tiny pieces of meat. but still better than nothing. however i told mom to make real russian homely pelmeni when me and Michael will go to visit Armenia :))

also there was a big russian company celebrating some girls birthday and they definitely felt at home. and i definitely felt like in a movie or a book. the ladies were all dressed up, had the "fur coats", and in general felt at home. they had perfect russian without the tinest bit of accent. i can assume that the whole company was from russian mafia. honestly. later on Michael talked to his boss about it and Bob said there was a huge Russian community on that street.. and that some were in mafia :)). anyways. i can say i saw that too :D

then there was a guy singing old russian songs and a girl. the girl tried singing Pugacheva's song. which was ridiculous, and she simply remained silent for great lengths of time when she couldn't pull the sound. i later showed some recordings by Pugacheva to Michael (i mean her old recording mind you, not the crap) and he was impressed with her voice (me too by the way).

then! we went to "vodka room". basically you feel like you go into a fridge, and a small window opens through which barman gives you a glass of ice (i guess they put glass into water and freeze it) filled with vodka - normal vodka - icy cold. that part i loved. the only "wrong" thing was they didn't give any pickles to have after vodka :(

we both loved that place and are looking forward to going there again. Michael wants to take Steve and Nicole with us the next time :) which will be great :D i'm looking forward to it.

it was a really great day full of everything - all three parts were exciting and i needed time to take it all in.