Caviar Dreams From Homeland

The sign in the window reads, in both the Russian and Roman alphabets, “Cafe Rus.” Behind the off-white curtains that make it hard to see much of the place from the outside is a combination market, delicatessen and de facto social club for Long Beach’s small Russian community.

The imprint of Mother Russia is all over this place. Smack in the middle of the large, boxy room, there’s a large table with a wooden chessboard set up on it. Against one wall is a bulletin board with information about Slavic cultural activities in the area. One of the many counters holds a silver samovar.

In the market section, the shelves are full of imported delicacies with Russian labels--pickles, exotic teas, fancy jams. You can also buy matrushkas, the famous Russian nesting dolls.

I’ve noticed that more and more non-Russian locals are wandering in and then coming back once they’ve tried the food. Sisters Nadia Bybee and Luba Barashkova, from a small village between St. Petersburg and Moscow, make most of it in a small back kitchen. Theirs is the kind of hearty, flavorful food that keeps you warm during the harsh Long Beach winters. (OK, so they’re not that harsh.)

Across from the market section, there are about eight or nine tables set with folksy blue and white tablecloths. This side of the room features some primitivist Russian paintings, but appointments are kept pretty simple.

Soups are my favorite thing to order here, and I like to accompany them with a piroshki. (Cafe Rus makes its own piroshkis, of course, and the cylinders of risen dough are stuffed with either ground meat or cabbage.) The soup I positively crave is the hearty shchi, loaded with cabbage, beef and shredded carrots and finished off with a big dollop of sour cream. Even more Russian, if that’s possible, is rassolnik, a thick soup made with barley, cucumber pickles and meat. It’s delicious with a slice of chewy unleavened black rye bread.

If shchi and rassolnik sound too heavy, you could have a clear, intense chicken broth with bits of potato and carrot added. No matter which soup you order, you get the black bread and usually one of the restaurant’s tasty garlic rolls.

Cafe Rus doesn’t offer dozens of zakuski (Russian appetizers) like some Russian places, but there are always a few on hand, and on request, the sisters will make you anything from the Siberian ravioli known as pelmeni to the Ukrainian dumplings called vareniki.

Anyway, they usually have eggplant caviar (baklazhannaia ikra, a spicy eggplant dip spiked with red pepper) and salad Olivier, sort of a mayonnaise-rich potato salad that incorporates lots of chicken, carrots and peas. Cafe Rus is one of the few places in the Southland where you can get vatrushka, little yeast rolls filled with farmer’s cheese. Order any of these dishes and they’ll probably bring you a jar of beet-red grated horseradish.

The main dishes, which come with a choice of buckwheat pilaf (kasha) or mashed potatoes, are quite large servings, but incredibly, they’re all under $5. The best of them is the stuffed cabbage rolls (golubtsy), which are far more meat than cabbage. The next best would be a fairly classic beef stroganoff, long strips of steak cooked in a mushroom and sour cream sauce.

I’d think carefully when ordering anything to drink here, though. Russian mineral water often has an incredibly high sodium content, and if you’re used to Pellegrino, a glass of Borjomi, say, can be a shock to the system. And personally, I’d rather visit the dentist than have a glass of the murky brown Russian malt beverage known as krats, but the Russian diners seem to enjoy it.

Then there is the “Russian lemonade,” which turns out to be a Brazilian soft drink made with the tropical fruit guarana, not with lemon juice at all. When I expressed surprise, my waitress shrugged and said in an accent as thick as shchi, “In Russia, is lemonade.” Go fight city hall.

The sisters keep busy by catering to a group of visiting Russian, Ukrainian and Norwegian scientists at McDonnell Douglas, who are involved in building a satellite. They are often at sea, it seems, and Cafe Rus provides them with meals while they are working.

As to the rest of us who like Russian food, we are no longer at sea in the city of Long Beach.

BE THERE

Cafe Rus, 340 E. 4th St., Long Beach. (562) 951-1154. Open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday. Parking in side lot. No alcohol. MasterCard and Visa. Lunch for two, $8-$17.

What to Get: piroshki, shchi, rassolnik, golubtsy, beef stroganoff.