You can take a girl away from her pelmeni, but you can’t take the love for pelmeni out of the girl. On our last night in Madrid, my sister and I went to a Russian restaurant called El cosaco (The Cossack.) The restaurant turned out to be so popular that we practically had to beg for a table. We got it but only because we had arrived for dinner at the extremely early hour of 9:40 pm.
The restaurant turned out to be very cozy and cute with beautiful crockery:
The pelmeni were a little limp but still better than any I ever managed to make at home. The only thing that sucks worse than my pelmeni are my vareniki. (The Polish call them pierogi, but that is just bizarre.)
However, the “Olivier Salad”, which is the absolute staple of any festive occasion for the Russian speakers, was very good. I don’t have a photo because it was so good that I devoured it in under a minute. My personal recipe for the “Olivier Salad” is, of course, better but this one was still very good. N. loves this salad with such a passion that I suspect he might want to call our baby Olivier if it happens to be a boy.
While we were eating, we observed a very funny scene. A group of very unpleasant Spanish men in their 40s came into the restaurant. They represented the kind of madrileños who give a bad name to all Spaniards. Their permanent bad mood is called “la mala leche,” meaning milk that has turned sour. The expression is very apt because such people look like they have been drinking bad, stinking milk for years.
The men were unhappy with the table the Russian waitress assigned to them and started being nasty.
“If I have to be treated this way, I will just leave! I will leave! I am leaving right now!” one of them vociferated angrily, without making a slightest movement towards the door. “It is incredible that I should be asked to sit at this small, badly placed table. I! At this table! Incredible! Unconscionable! I am leaving! See me walk away right now!”
The Russian waitress, however, belonged to the generation of Soviet waitresses, which means that her life philosophy was, “The fewer clients I have, the less effort I have to make.” She didn’t even try to discuss anything with the unpleasant customers and just stood there, looking at them blankly and waiting for them to make good on their promise and clear out. She provided a really great touch of the typically Russian experience.
The impasse between the typically Spanish and the typically Russian brands of unpleasantness was hilarious. We didn’t see who got to win because a Spanish maitre d’ arrived and resolved the situation.
However, there was also a young Russian waitress – who looked like the perfect image of a Russian beauty – who belongs to the new generation and whose work was very professional. Here is the beautiful Russian tea in the traditional glass holder she brought us:
I totally need to buy these glass holders for home.
Clarissa's Blog 
Is it wrong that I chuckled and probably would have done the almost the same thing as the waitress? How bad was the table? I’m sorry, but if you’re going go straight to that high dudgeon, chances are that the waitress’s tip would not improve once she moved them to a better table. (Wait, do they even have the same sub-minimum wage plus tip system for waiters in Spain?) If they asked nicely, maybe the table could get rearranged..
I grew up in a city that had a lot of Polish immigrants so Mrs. T was ok, but paled in comparison to the restaurant ones. Does your town or the nearest big city have good pelmeni? I can’t imagine that yours would be worse than Mrs. T.
The tea holder is beautiful, I agree.
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The table was not bad at all, but there were many other tables available as it was still ‘early’, so she could have easily moved them (which is what the manager did anyway).
Here is how it went:
Angry Spaniard – give me another table right now!
Blase Russian – I don’t have another table. (amidst several empty tables)
And since there is no tipping in Spain, the waitress really couldn’t care less. 🙂
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The table was better placed than ours. In these old Spanish buildings, the walls and the floors are uneven, and the tables are spread out in weird patterns across tiny, strangely shaped rooms.
There is no tipping in Spain, but even if there was, I think this waitress would have been as recalcitrant. I suspect it is part of the authentic experience.
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“We got it but only because we had arrived for dinner at the extremely early hour of 9:40 pm.”
And I know you’re not sarcastic!
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See, I have no idea whether that’s early for Spaniards or early for Russians. In my grandfather’s house 9:40 pm was early; he thought nothing of having dinner at say 10:30 or 11 pm (at home anyways). 5 -7 pm was tea time.
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Most people were showing up after 11 pm! What a joy, given that here where I live, everything is closed by 9 pm!
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We have the same problem in Québec with this fucking christian practice.
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I don’t see anything specifically Christian about this. Spain was always an ultra-Catholic country that ate very late and had a siesta during the day.
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Even though many restaurants close between 11pm to 1am in here in Québec these days.
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I have the same problem eating in town where I go to school. Almost everything is closed between six and eight. It was more of a problem over the summer, when I might get back to my apartment around seven and have nothing to eat but pizza, unless I wanted to walk for forty-five minutes.
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“Spain was always an ultra-Catholic country that ate very late and had a siesta during the day.”
Spain was less ultra catholic than Québec in the 40-50s but you’re in part right. This is caused in part by the climate (this is irrelevant now) and a Québec Catholic “accomodation procedure” that abolished the Saturday (and even progressively the Sunday) as an obligated non-work day.
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“Spain was less ultra catholic than Québec in the 40-50s but you’re in part right. ”
– My friend, let’s not argue about something that is my area of expertise. There was a fascist Catholic dictatorship in Spain in the 40s that put people in concentration camps run by priests and nuns. Seriously, there is no need to argue about this.
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Oops, you reply to my comment before I would retract my first sentence. You’re right.
Well…it seems that this facist catholic state was less interested to regulate the conduct of businesses than our Grande Noirceur catholic state.
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Clash of the titans:
Spoiled arrogant Spanish mama’s boys vs single apathetic Russian waitress.
My money’s on the Russian, big time.
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Yes, we can show the Spaniards who’s the boss really fast. 🙂 🙂
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I’m totally enchanted with the idea of pelmini and am going to try them out. Lots of good tutorials on You Tube.
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For some reason, my dough always comes out tasting like rubber.
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The Olivier Salad is a feast for so many reasons… and Oliver is such a wonderful name! What is the Russian equivalent for this very refined name?
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That’s the only problem: there isn’t one. It sounds exactly the same as in French.
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