| rev:text
| - Saturday night, 8:30 p.m. One couple is seated at one of the banquettes. That's it. But that's what I read in the Yelp reviews, and it's a damned shame. I just don't understand why there aren't more people eating at this restaurant, and how they've managed to stay open so long with so few diners and no liquor license.
This was our first visit, and it was good. Oh, sure, there's a disco ball in the middle of the ceiling, and a stage covered up with black, gauzy fabric, with Christmas tinsel and icicle lights dangling. The piped-in music was a bit tinny, and the TV was on, albeit with the sound off, but just above our heads, so I could see for certain that Cynthia McFadden is indeed the daughter of Kathryn Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. And the big cardboard cutouts of maybe tango dancers? decorating the walls, along with unintelligible Russian signs - well, intelligible to Russians, but this is a Ukrainian restaurant.
The room is ringed with comfortable banquettes upholstered in a slightly Southwest pattern (Southwest Ukraine?), and the floor is beautiful - large tiles in an inlaid wood pattern that almost had me fooled. There's a bit too much light for it to be romantic - the room could benefit from less of it, with sine candles on the tables for ambience sake.
But all this is secondary to the main reason for being here: the food. It's delicious. We took the advice of one reviewer and shared two hot entrees, the Pelmeni and the potato Vareniki, and both were tasty. The sauteed, caramelized onions were spectacular with the potato filling of the Vareniki. Then we shared the Beef Stroganoff, which was garnished with a cabbage and carrot slaw (no mayo), sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, and seasoned fried potatoes (they were a bit too salty, and I'd ask for them to leave the extra salt off next time, but that's just me).
The waitress was a young woman who's been here since the age of 12, so her English was flawless, and the service was excellent. She brought us each a taste of the unusual Kvas, the Russian drink made from fermented bread. It's non-alcoholic and is sort of beer-like, but doesn't taste like beer. It was okay, but this is the rare Vegas restaurant that has no liquor license, and we were forewarned from the other reviews, so we'd brought a bottle of wine with us. The wine was more enticing than the Kvas, so we didn't feel the need to order it.
All three dishes exceeded our yearly quota of sour cream, so we were too full and too over-cholesteroled to think of ordering dessert, so we quit after the Stroganoff.
I cut my teeth on Russian cuisine in the many Russian Night Clubs in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where the tables groan under the weight of the appetizers alone, and a bottle of vodka graces each table. Tverskaya couldn't be further from that scene. But a great meal at a great price is waiting to be discovered by Las Vegas, and I hope they do.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)