There's Always Room for Kvas

You might think that after gorging ourselves on imam bayildi at Taverna Cretekou’s Sunday buffet, and chasing our galaktaboureko with some Croation chocolate from Plava Laguna that we’d be ready to finally beach ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon. But after checking out the Bosnian grocer, my father suggested that we roll past a new commercial outpost on the edge of Old Town to see if Russian Gourmet had finally opened for business.

As we walked up to the door, we could see workers on ladders fussing with light fixtures, while others were busily stocking shelves. But we barged in nonetheless and became their very first customers.

Russian Gourmet is actually a burgeoning chain of Russian specialty shops. Their website lists several locations in Virginia and Maryland, and we’d previously schlepped out to their location in Mclean for piroshkys and homemade eggplant salad. So we were stoked that all of our favorite Russian treats would now be a mere five minutes drive from our homestead.

We only scored a few items that weekend, as the store had only had about half its inventory stocked.

My father insisted that we split a cake that was half poppyseed and half chocolate. The cake was somewhat like a babka, and the cake itself had an egginess that was reminiscent of challah, although it was a bit dry. Fortunately, the chocolate and the poppyseed only met in the middle, and were otherwise given reign over their own halves of the cake. I’m a huge fan of poppyseeds, but the poppyseed mix in this cake had an earthiness of taste at the expense of sweetness. The chocolate half of the cake was unremarkable. Perhaps one is supposed to alternate bites of earthy poppyseed with sweet chocolate to arrive at the happy medium the bakers may have intended.

I also walked off with a bottle of Georgia’s Natural Pomegranate Juice. That’s Georgia, as in Tbilisi, not Savannah. And Georgian pride abounds in this humble juice as the label boasts, “Consists of premium fresh sun-ripe pomegranates to preserve the distinctive Georgian taste.” If a fruit juice could ever be described as “manly,” then this is it. The juice is the deepest shade of dark red, and, at first, its robust smell is almost beet-like. It tastes of maximum tartness with only the faintest hint of sweetness. In fact, it may be the closest a fruit juice can get to tasting like a vegetable juice without actually being vegetable juice.

And there’s always room for Kvas. Kvas tastes like fermented raisin wheat bread and actually has a very low alcohol content, usually not more than two percent. Indeed, it turns out that Kvas is actually made from fermented fruit and Russian black bread. I have no idea how Kvas is meant to be enjoyed. Like, do Russians just kick back on the couch for a leisurely afternoon of channel surfing accompanied by a bubbly glass of Kvas? Or is it only enjoyed on special occasions? Despite its awfulness, Kvas has somehow captured my affections. I’ve been trying to teach myself how to properly appreciate it, but so far my efforts have been unsuccessful. But the more it repulses me, the more I want to love it. Perhaps by my fifth glass, my sense of taste will have finally assimilated to Kvas.

Check out Russian Gourmet’s latest location in Alexandria at 907 Slaters Lane.
—AC