The Брайтон Бич chronicles
Привет and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! If you’re new, check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.
Eggplant salad at Café At Your Mother-in-Law
3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11235
I spent the majority of my childhood and early teenage years under the rule of two strong, post-Soviet female figures: My mother, who grew up during the Cultural Revolution in Beijing, and my gymnastics coach, a petite, extremely toned and terrifying blonde woman in her fifties who hailed from the Russian city of Voronezh.* In one particularly vivid memory, I remember driving to a gymnastics competition several states away in our little white Toyota Corolla, while listening to a cassette tape of Mao era pro-Soviet songs on loop for the whole drive, a nostalgic soundtrack for both women.** Perhaps that’s why I felt oddly at home in Café At Your Mother-in-Law, a homey, popular Korean-Uzbeki cafe in the Russian Jewish neighborhood of Brighton Beach, with its mixture of Eastern European and Eastern Asian cultures. There isn’t too much fusion going on here — it’s more of a respectful cohabitation than melting pot (you can read more about the cafe’s backstory here, which is tinged with tragedy). There are several eggplant salads on the menu, and I chose the one titled simply “eggplant salad,” which turned out to be a cold dish of eggplant and sweet red peppers. This recipe lies on the Korean side of things, but it reminds me of my mom’s cooking: Sweet and sour and full of cilantro, it was very addictive.
*Where I would later spend a fateful summer at gymnastics camp, but that’s a story for another newsletter — or maybe a memoir.
** This was pure nostalgia on my mother’s part, and not at all a reflection of her values.
Pear soda at Café At Your Mother-in-Law
3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11235
There is no alcohol on the menu at Café at Your Mother-in-Law, but there are shot glasses. It’s a BYO vodka kind of place, with middle-aged men transporting mysterious bottles of clear liquor wrapped in plastic bags, and young folks hauling in six-dollar six-packs from one of the many Russian grocery stores nearby. But if you’re not feeling the alcohol, not to worry — Café At Your Mother-in-Law also has soda on the menu, and it comes in both a shocking-green tarragon and a pear flavor. As tempting as tarragon sounded, the color was a bit too reminiscent of Four Loko for me, so I went with pear. The soda seemed to be having a bit of an identity crisis: The label claimed that it was “Georgian Lemonade,” but the taste was more like cream soda than either pear or lemon. Either way, it was delicious and refreshing sweet, without being too carbonated, the perfect sidekick to the spicy and heavy dishes.
Pelmeni at Café At Your Mother-in-Law
3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11235
Every cuisine has their version of the dumpling. Be it ravioli, Perogi, or wonton, meat or veggies wrapped in a tiny package will always have massive crowd appeal. According to my mother, there is only One True Dumpling, and that’s Beijing style, but occasionally I break the mold and give other cultures a chance. I’m glad I did. The pelmeni at Café At Your Mother-in-Law were plump and chewy, with a filling of what tasted like pork and lamb. The broth was light but flavorful, and served with a mysterious dish of sour cream (which I didn’t find very complimentary). The flavors were far simpler than Chinese dumplings — there didn’t seem to be many aromatics or seasonings going on — but it satisfied in a straightforward, comforting way.
Pumpkin samsa at Café At Your Mother-in-Law
3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11235
This little pastry parcel cause quite a bit of confusion at our table — the menu listed that it was filled with pumpkin and beef. But when it arrived, and I bit inside, there didn’t seem to be any trace of beef inside, just dozens of tiny cubes of pumpkin that exploded onto plate and table, like a small pumpkin piñata. It was definitely festive, and the pastry was nice and buttery but I wish that the filling had more zest: It was, well, literally just cubes of pumpkin. Next time, I’ll try the beef.
Hanum (potato and tomato pie) at Café At Your Mother-in-Law
3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11235
It’s hard to envision something that’s made out of potatoes and pasta as delicate, but the hanum (listed as potato pie), is very light for something constructed purely out of carbs. Thin slices of steamed potato are wrapped in wrinkled sheets of pasta noodles, with a bit of tomato and dill to top it all off. It’s a work of art, and possibly as opposite as you can get from a lasagna while still retaining the same basic construction.
до свидания,
Соня
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