Sushi restaurant

Hey, guess what the cat’s meow is in Moscow these days? Sushi. Imagine, The Red Square flanked by menus featuring nigiri, rolls, sashimi, unagi, plus  new twists on old favorites like shrimp “pelmeni” (Russian “ravioli,”) at a Japanese restaurant. Even with some unnecessary mayonnaise here and there, the Muscovites didn’t invent bad fusion food. Some of the menu items may actually be quite successful.

Yaposha

Kyoto

I wouldn’t know, of course, because I choose to take the gustatory road more traveled. Traveled, that is, by tourists, and probably some xenophobes and/or nationalists.

Voila. My favorite place to see and be seen in Moskva: “Stolovaya No. 57” (AKA “Cafeteria No. 57”), a callisthenic exercise in kitsch. Canteen style dining (think trays,long lines) modeled to capture sight, sound, smell, and spirit of the Stalin Era without that Gulag aftertaste.

Stolovaya No. 57

From the romantic 1940s music gliding through overhead speakers, to posters shouting Mayakovsky-style imperatives about the healthfulness of cutlets, it’s enough to make a former party member shake at the knees, cry bitterly, and then self-medicate with a plateful of beetroot salad, chicken shashlik, and buckwheat kasha.

Mmm Cutlets

And sausage

About that, the food is actually really good, especially if your palate pines for Eastern European melancholy and black bread. The price is right, too (Relatively.)  Which is a welcome surprise. Moscow’s not easy on the wallet, so one wouldn’t expect an eatery inside GUM (AKA “Glavnyi Universalnyi Magazin” AKA “The Main Department Store” or “Moscow’s high-end shopping mall”) to give you a break. Maybe price-control is part of the Socialist throwback motif. Plus a little added something-something: With all foods on display for your wandering eyes and pointing fingers, you won’t fall prey to accidentally ordering gelatinous tongue or a glass of raw egg-yolk.

Yummy tongue!

Eggyolk smoothie anyone?

Not interested? Then, there’s a T.G.I. Friday’s (pronounced “TE – DJE – EE FRA-I-DIS”) on Moscow’s main street, Tverskaya. Isn’t that right, Dr. Mrs. Deep Fried Russian Chicken Finger Afraid To Try New Things, Jr.?

TGIF