Russian Culture Experience

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate August 2001

download word file, 2 pages 5.0

Queens-NYC Experience For my Queens-NYC cultural experience, I visited a large Russian community in Brooklyn. A few of my friends are Russian and I thought that it would be a great opportunity to learn about their culture. They took me to a Russian restaurant/night club called "Tatiana"�, which is located on the boardwalk of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. It is a beautiful restaurant, over looking the water that turns in to the Atlantic Ocean. The restaurant caters to small and large parties. As we were seated down at our table, I glanced over at surrounding tables and realized that it was much different from American restaurants. I saw that some tables were empty and others already had food on the table, even thought there were not that many at the tables. I asked my friends why this was so and they told me that usually when there is a large party, the hosts preorder numerous varieties or dishes and courses and have them set on the table.

As I was glancing through them, I realized that many of the foods served at Russian restaurant are not all Russian, but moreover a mix of many dishes from different European countries and cultures. However, I made sure to order traditional Russian dishes because I wanted to get a feel of the whole culture. I had an ethnic Russian soup called Borsht, which is made with red beets, potatoes, other vegetables and beef. It is a reddish color and often eaten with sour cream and a bread bun that is soaked in garlic called a pumushka. I also had varenki, which are very similar to ravioli and can be filled with different types of things, such as potato.

They also had a live DJ at the restaurant, which played mostly a...