Russian Food in Miami!! Eating Through Little Moscow!!

Welcome to beautiful sunny isles. It's a beautiful sunny day, crystal clear blue waters, and this is known as Little Moscow or Moscow by the sea. After the Soviet Union fell in the 90s, Russians started immigrating over here and buying up these luxury condos right here on the beach. Right now 7,000 Russians call this place home. Today we're going to find out all about the Russian people, the culture, and of course the food. Let's go. Kalinka Euro Deli. This place has incredible Russian food. What is that? Well, it's basically borscht, palmeni, Olivier salad, and so much more than that. Let's go inside. And right here we have the owner, Paulina. Paulina, how are you? Hi, Dave. Good, how are you? Very good. So where are we right now? Right now we are at the heart of sunny isles, Little Moscow. That's Kalinka. I'm owner of that beautiful place and I'm happy to introduce the traditional Russian food. So you do Russian food, but you also have a market, you sell wine. I mean, I see a variety. Yes, yes. The first we start import the products from Russia, because when the people move from Russia, they miss some products. I want to show it to you, that's the best products, knowing only the best ingredients. And the people love it because it's like the products from the grew up. Okay, so as soon as you walk in, right here at the counter, we have wines, we have desserts. And then over here you have, it's lunchtime. Now change for the Russian soups, main course, some fish. You can see that's so yummy. It looks amazing. Yeah. And also the pies, the blintzes, that's a lot of homemade products, which we made there. And you can see the people love it. They come in for the lunch, for the breakfast, for the dinner. And also we have the potatoes, you have cauliflower, mushrooms. They also have dumplings, tongue, herring. I mean, it doesn't stop over here. We have so many different breads. That's the bread, the ingredients from Russia. And we baked here. You can feel the smell. It smells amazing. And that's the homemade poppy seed pie. It looks so good. Yeah, so good. It's so yummy. Right here, we're making classic Russian dumplings. As you can see, she has the dough, she flattens it on this presser, then it's circular like that. And then she grabs the meat and this is all beef and onion. Looks super juicy. And then she puts it onto the dough and then she's going to close it. That's the traditional classic pies. We can bake or also we fry. It's so delicious. It's good with traditional soup, the borscht. So very good. And right here, she's cutting the boiled beets. This is the key ingredient in the borscht soup. I love borscht soup. It's a warming soup, especially in those cold winters in Russia and Ukraine. You need this. Smells good. Thank you. Oh, what is that? That's what she's doing. Oh, that's that. Okay. So potato, beets, carrots, and in the middle, the herring. It's so specific, but the Russian people love it. So there's herring inside here. There's the herring inside and you can see the beet on the top and the little bit of the eggs. Wow. That looks amazing. You want to try it? I'm trying everything. Everything. Let's do it. Oh, it's like the capelli. It's like the hat. This looks like traditional bread right here, like nice and crispy. What is that? That's the bread. We have every morning. It's fresh and you can smell it. That's very good. And by the way, where are you from in Russia? I'm from Ural. It's my town between Europe and Asia. Yekaterinburg. That's the biggest city. But I already moved to like this little Moscow in Miami. That's amazing. Why so many Russians here? They started coming like 30 years ago. Yes. And because I think the breeze is close. So the ocean is close. The weather is beautiful and always sunny. Sunny isles. So always, always sunny. Yeah. After this, we're going to the beach. It's right there. Yeah. This is my babushka. Babushka. Babushka. Okay. So we're going to boil the dumplings right now. We're just waiting for the water to boil. And over here we have traditional Russian dumplings. They have to bubble. And here we go. We're dropping in the dumplings. Look at that. Boiling water. Yeah. It does look like almost like an Italian ravioli. Similar. What is it stuffed with? What's inside it? Inside the beef. It's beef? Yes. But also it can be salmon, it can be turkey, chicken, any kind of stuffing inside. I mean with salmon, that would be amazing. Salmon? Yeah. That's my favorite. Yeah. I'm sure. And does it have like, do we dip in some yogurt? I'm guessing. Yogurt on the side? Yeah. Okay. Sour cream on the side. Yeah. It's going to be good. So we just got to wait a few minutes here. So over here we have some chicken dumplings and this is for a Russian daycare. Look at it. They, they pop up like little balloons. Look at that. Yeah. Just like, the kids love it. Nice. Look at that. So that is, it looks like sauerkraut. So it was a cabbage roll. Wow. It looks good. It's done. Look at that. Beautiful dumplings with the butter. Nice meat dumplings. Wow. So many of them. It's ready. It's ready? Yeah. Traditional Russian meal. Here we go. We're starting off with borscht. Borscht is the best example of globalization. How did this start? Well, 5th to 9th century in ancient Ukraine, Russian area, they had hogweed. Eventually the 1500s, 16th century, they added beets. And then in the 19th century, they added potatoes and tomatoes and that's how it evolved. We have some bacon on the side. He said it's really good with it. Nice and fatty and salty. Over here we have the dumplings with some yogurt. And then this is herring salad. So it's herring, the fish with the beets, also some cheese, some eggs and some spinach. And we're starting off with this. It's been a while. As you can see, this one does have some meat. Yeah. It's a nice beef right there. It's the ultimate umami soup. You know, savory. Oh man, you know what I taste here? Onions, potatoes, the beets are amazing. And he told me, he's like, just throw this on top. Salted bacon right there. So it's almost raw, the same way like in Romania, same vibe, very gelatinous, salty, super salty. Oh, I love the borscht. The borscht is like definitely a warming soup. Freezing in Russia. Have a nice couple of this. So many onions. It's like the ultimate vegetable soup with some meat. So one thing about borscht, you'll notice that it varies from family to family. Every single restaurant does it differently. And in the summer months in St. Petersburg, you're going to get this cold. And you know, there are different ingredients, sometimes cabbage, carrots, potatoes. But at the end of it, you know, you always have the base of beets. You also have some sour cream on the side. You get to throw this in there, thicken it up a little bit. A little sweet. Every time I take a bite of this, it reminds me of St. Petersburg. I love borscht. So why so many Russians here in this area? It's all about convenience. Convenience and look at the weather. It's all about beach. Climate. It's all about food. It's all about, you know, like being together. Yeah. So what's the history of the palmeni? Well, locally known as ear bread. This was a hunter's food from Siberia. You know, meat packed with a dumpling. Then you freeze it, you thaw it, you boil it with snow. And you know, during Mongolian conquest, that's how it spread. And a lot of historians say it dates back to Chinese, you know, obviously Silk Road, dumplings, noodles, it all came from there. So I'm going to dip it into this sour cream, of course, always. I could eat these all day. Oh, the butter, the butter, sour cream. Oh yeah. This, throw a little bit of paprika on top. Perfect. All right, guys, I have to try this. This is something I've never tried before. This is herring with beets. It's like almost like a herring beet salad with eggs and some cheese. This is some carrots. As you can see, nice and colorful. Nice cold salad, crunchy. Could taste a little bit of saltiness from the herring. Oh, it's very good. Man, you guys, you Russians love your salads, right? It's all about the potato salad, Russian salad. Wow, it's actually amazing. Super cold. I mean, that saltiness really cuts through the coldness of the potato like a lightsaber through butter. It's actually phenomenal, bro. I like it a lot. What I'd say is my favorite, probably this guy. They're so good. What's amazing is that we're here in the middle of South Florida. Got the beach right over there. The sun is shining and we're in this uh this strip mall and it's like literally little Russia. Moscow by the sea. Kvass, rye and malt. When I saw it, I was like, is this a cold brew? No, it's just all malty. Have you ever had a malt drink? Same, but you have a little bit of that rye to it. A little sweet. It's my favorite if there's alcohol in it. So what is this? That's just like dry bread and tastes different taste. That's the cheese and salmon. Oh yeah, so this goes with salmon. It's like a chip and crouton. Yes, it's like croutons. Oh yeah, it is like it's like fried bread. Yeah, this with some salmon. Definitely crouton. Similar. It's actually tasty. Yeah, a little sweet. Being here for 10 minutes, I already hear a lot of Russian. That's incredible. Beautiful people. Do you want to move it? Do I want to move it? I love you, I love you. Oh, that's non-alcoholic drink. It's very good. It's different kind, different flavors. It's like soda, but that's the Russian. It's like. That's the Hulk's favorite drink. Oh, so buckwheat. Yeah, yeah. My daughter always eat that in the breakfast and all kids love it. So it's very good for the health. So buckwheat. Buckwheat, yeah. And only you can find in Russian store. So I've had buckwheat, buckwheat pancakes before. Oh yeah. It's good. They have it at that all you need over there. Oh yeah, pancakes. Yeah, they're good. But yeah, it's very good for your health. Yeah, this is a different type of. Only you can find in Russian store. Only in Russian store? Yeah. I love how everything's in Cyrillic. That's how you know it's Russian and all this. I can never read this. Yeah, I can help you. So how do you say I love you in Russian? That's a long one. We butchered that earlier. That was bad. That was bad. I got it. I got it. Yeah. So what are these? That's the candy. That's the waffle. That's called, it's like milk from bird. That's the name, but that's name. Milk from bird? Yes. It's a bird's milk? Bird's milk, right. But it's souffle. It's like, do you want to try it? Yeah, I'll try this one. Bird's milk. Okay, so the inside, what's inside? That's souffle. You can see it's a little crumbly, the chocolate, and inside's white souffle. Yeah, it tastes like thin mint. It's like a nice pillow inside. It's a mint pillow. Oh, so it's raspberry dipped in chocolate. Yeah, that's really, really good. Russian snacks are good. Inside, a lot of... Oh wow, look guys, look at this. Oh, my kids would love this. Frozen Give me ice cold. It is delicious. I love raspberries. So what's one misconception about Russian people, do you think? Because us Americans, we have this idea about Russians. Yeah, but Russian people is really nice person. They have a good heart and they enjoy the life. They're happy and they're friendly. The Russian people is really nice people. I'm from Russia and I move here and I try to give that country more love, more happiness, more good food. Yeah, I think one thing people don't get is that there is a language barrier. Sometimes that plays a role here, but I've interacted with so many Russians and I have a great time always. Is Nazdrovye a good thing? Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, dancing, drinking, and have fun. Russian is such an interesting language. We have it in Cyrillic. I can't even read it. It's interesting to hear it. So tell us one thing you would say to the people out there in Russian. David, we are glad to see you in Kalinka, in the heart of Sunny Isles. We love you very much. We are waiting for you to come. Russian people are very kind and beautiful. We love you. I know dobre. I think you said to subscribe and smash that like button if you know what's good for you. So one thing I noticed as soon as I walked in here is like a million roses. Why so many roses? Because the Russian men love to give that to the girlfriend or the friends. It's not a specific birthday party. Just go for the Friday, pick up some flowers, and give to the girls. That's our tradition. Look at those beautiful roses. David, here's your cake, man. Nothing's wrong with it. I promise. What did you do to this cake? As the Russians say, which means trust but verify. Now let me verify this. It's a honey cake. Look at that. It's amazing layers. Got the cream in the middle and then the honey on the side. So I'm going to just put the honey on top. Just like that. Wow. What a beauty. Oh, it's already super fluffy. All right, guys. It is like a fluffy pillow. I just want to sleep on it. So good. Wow, the honey, the cream. It's amazing. You know what I love is the actual cake. The inside is super thin layer. It's actually way more cream than cake. Oh my God. Well, this is the one you have to try. So I've realized that fluffy pillow has been trademarked by my friend Mark Wiens. So I'm going to call this a cream hammock. I love it. And they also brought this. This is like a souffle. You have a chocolate layer on top. Nice. You have whipped cream, sponge cake on the bottom. You have chocolate, more cream, chocolate. And that looks maybe like could be like dulce de leche right there or caramel. I love my job. Yo. Oh my God. It is so good. It is so many different layers in one thing. The textures. It's almost like a chocolate pyramid. You have this white chocolate mousse right in the center. We have the berries on the side. I'm going to try the berries now. Oh my God. With the chocolate cake. Yo. Things out of control. Look at this layer right here. Oh, it's like spongy. I love it. Might like it more than the honey cake, but let me see again. I verify. It is amazing. And right here we have a walnut shaped pastry filled with caramel and chocolate. I'm going to open it up so you guys can see. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it does look like dulce de leche, condensed milk. I don't know my friends. Oh my gosh. What is that? Special tea. Special tea. Try it. I'll never feel bad. Last bite. They poisoned me. Actually they poisoned me with deliciousness. Oh wow. The mint in there. Incredible. So it's like a fruity. Oranges, mint, berries. Incredible tea. It's a great digestive. Wow. I'll say. I don't know what it is about the Russians, but they're all freaking amazing. They're all so friendly. A lot of Ukrainians in here as well. They're all great people. We're on the ultimate Russian food tour and I'm going to be visiting Matryoshka. This is a Russian slash Eastern European grocery store. They have buffet, lots of good food. They also have a lot of products from Russia. Come inside, let's check it out. As soon as you're walking in, you can see this is more of a proper market. You have vegetables, you have fruits in the very end. They have soda drinks, you got beer, a true supermarket. But as you get deeper, you'll start seeing other products from Ukraine, from Russia, European. Oh, even over here, you can see the milk, traditional style, like cured milk. And you can see in Cyrillic. So much kefir. Why? Well, it originates thousands of years ago in the Caucasus mountains. The way they used to do is they used to put it into like leather pouches and let it ferment there. Interesting. Kefir. I actually drink this every day. Next section, lots of cheese. On the right over here, we have some Russian sodas. And one thing that's very interesting here is that each label will tell you exactly where it's from. This is Lithuania, this is Belarus, that's Greek. Over here, Moldova, lots of stuff from Moldova. Okay. So what is this? Oh my God. So this is Moldova oyster mushroom sauce. Russians love their smoked salted fish. Over here we have Lithuanian, Russian, Belarus, more Russian. This one's from Russia. That is very nice. I do love that they label it with the flags. So you know exactly where it's from. Got lots of herring, forever herring. So it's very interesting. You got Russian mustard. Look at this. You got this one, it's Dijon, but it's Russia. And this one has the seeds in it. I do like the seed one, but this one's more smooth. And you can see it says Russia right here. All Russia. Here we have a mountain of Russian food. It is a massive buffet, easily 30 different items. So how it works is you grab a little container and then we go looking. So right here we have a syrnik, which is a farmer cheese pie. Grab one of these and it goes by the weight. So I'm just going to put that right there and see what else they got. They have like pork ribs, they have cabbage rolls, beef stroganoff, creamy beef stew. This is delicious guys. Just going to put a little bit right here. And then of course we have to get the cabbage stuffed with chicken. Cabbage rolls is a big thing in many countries, Hungary, Romania. And then over here we have the cooked buckwheat. And then this is a massive thing in Russia. They're all about their buckwheat. Got buckwheat pancakes, buckwheat. So we get some of that. And the one thing you can't miss when you eat Russian cuisine, Olivier salad. This is with chicken. So it's like a potato with peas, nice cold salad. And that's our Russian feast. We're starting off with the beef stroganoff. Love the beef stroganoff. It's a nice beef, creamy stew with some mushrooms. It is the best bro. Oh yeah. Hearty, earthy, creamy. Wow. This is phenomenal. What I love about this is that creamy sauce. Imagine having like a mushroom soup with meat. Now the cabbage roll. This one's a little different from the ones I had in Romania. That monster roll. As soon as I bite into it, super moist. You got chicken throughout, but you also have carrots in here. Trying to think what else is in here. Some onions. Oh yeah. Look at this. It's like soaked. It's like dripping. Definitely tastes completely different from a sarmale in Romania. This one is chicken. That's the first thing. Over there it's a mix of meat and pork. But this one also has the flavors of vegetables. And it is soaked. Eastern Europe, the land of cabbage. Wow. Over here we have some cooked buckwheat. Buckwheat? It's been a while since I've had buckwheat. Yeah. Grainy, starch. A little tough. Everywhere you look, 50 million dollar home. Russian money. This is the Olivier salad. This is a classic in Eastern Europe, especially in holidays, birthday parties, weddings. You get it every single time. So what is it? It's a potato salad. It's cold. There's peas. This one has carrots, some egg, mayo of course, and sometimes meat. This one has chicken. Look at that. Nice cold salad. And they said it gets tastier as it chills. What I taste the most here is the eggs, the peas, and some of that chicken. When I think about Russia, this is like the first dish I think about. Olivier salad. You want to impress a Russian girl? Bring this home. Serniki. Basically a blintz. A cheese-filled pancake. Look at this. Oh yeah. The cheese is like coming out right there. I think this with some honey will be amazing. Cut this open. It reminds me of like feta cheese. Amazing layers. Salted cheese, but nice and sweet. I'm pretty sure there's honey in here. Oh my god. What an incredible layer. Yeah. Nice and flaky. Man, the blintz. It's one of my ultimate dishes. This is how packed it is with cheese. You have the salted cheese, but still very sweet. You really see the Jewish origins right here in the dish. I love this thing. For me, out of everything, you go with this. This meal right here was my definition of Russian comfort food. It gave me everything I wanted. You know, a little salty, a little sweet, savory. Definitely filling. That's all you need. Russian vodka. One of the biggest cliches about the Russians, but it's famous worldwide. It is delicious. We're here at the corner store right here in the same strip mall. And then over here we have the Blue Storm vodka. Look at this bottle, guys. Incredible. This is Russian because of course there are some vodkas that are not Russian, but this is definitely a Russian vodka. So here at the end of the store, we have the entire vodka section. It is massive. It's more than just Russian. There's Grey Goose. There's so many different brands from all different countries. Kettle One, absolute vodka. Delicious. Oh, he's so cute. Nice to meet you. What's your name? Tanya. Tanya. And you're from Russia? Yes. Yeah? From St. Petersburg. From St. Petersburg? Yes. Amazing. So beautiful city. It's a beautiful. Moscow number one, St. Petersburg number two. And vodka number three? Vodka number one. Vodka number one. So what vodka do we have? I know we have the Grey Goose there, but what's another? There's no Russian one, no? Ukrainian? Russian Ukrainian in Miami very friendly. Okay. I guess we go with this one. This is two dollars. Wow. Okay. Two dollars. No, just for me. I drink the whole thing. You're so friendly. What's your favorite Russian dish? Borscht? Yeah, we eat a lot of Russian food over here. So good. No, good food. Good food. And here we go. Vodka. When was it created? Who created it? 1500s, Russia, Poland. One of them created it. It was known as vodka. It was a medicine. It was very, very strong, probably dangerous. And then in the 1800s, Tsar Nicholas III made some laws to purify vodka that we know today. And it's delicious. It's 40% alcohol. Thank you, Tsar Nicholas. This one's from Ukraine. Bro, smells like medicine, but it's so good. Oh, wow. This one's actually a little floral. Not so bad. I don't know if this is legal to do this right here in this parking lot, but it's all good. You know what? I remember drinking vodka when I was younger. I used to have cocktails at the clubs. You know, everybody was drinking Grey Goose. That was the thing. But definitely go with the Russian or the Ukrainian one. French is pretty good too, though. That'll put some hairs on my head. I need it. I know that. The ultimate Russian food tour here in Miami. We're here at Lavka. This place has a Russian market, but they also have a crepe with black caviar. I'm so pumped. Let's go inside. Look at this beautiful restaurant. And over here, right when you walk in, you got the caviar section. Love this. Russian market, caviar, so many good things. Got some sweets. Oh, right here, we have the dumplings. Forever dumplings. So if you want to get your face on dumplings, come right here. See what else they got. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is all like Russian. Like, look, it's like pickles, jams, mix of things here. All right, so over here, we have some cherry tomatoes. We also got, this looks like maybe some lentils. All Russian goods. Puff wheat flakes. This is so Russian, guys. Try some of that stuff. And over here, we have the basturma. This is huge over there. You got some cheeses, smoked cheeses. You got beers, Russian and Ukrainian beers. What else? This is akvar green gold tea. I would read to you all the brands, but I can't read Cyrillic, guys. Somebody let me know. How do you read this? Look, that looks good. Some Russian chocolate. Love the smoked cheese, string cheese. So if you just want to take borscht home, they got borscht ready to go. Right here. Love my borscht. And over here, they got some fresh herring, smoked. Look at this. Pull one of these fish out. Oh, still nice and oily. Bream. Oh, it's a sea bream. And right here, we have some sweet corn puffs. Here in the United States, we have more potato-based snacks. And what is up with this? I was in Romania recently. They love this stuff. This art piece is titled David in Rome. I want to believe it's me. He does have the blue eyes, right? So he's going to put the crepe on the plate. Beautiful fluffy crepe. Four homemade crepes. So you can see the texture looks a little different from your French crepe. He also added a sour cream and a slice of lemon. And next, we have the star, the black caviar. Wow. It's my favorite. The black caviar. Look at that. It's like little salty balls, like gushers. Russian food. We've got the borscht over here. Love this with the beets. So colorful. Then you got the chicken soup. Amazing. Chicken breast with some noodles. And the solyanka. So this has sausage. It has looks like some olives in there. I'm going to start off with this one. Oh, I love nice chunks of beef. Solyanka. Yo, it's so hearty. Oh, I love the olive in there. Nice and chunky. Very earthy. This in the winters in Russia, you need this. Oh yeah. Also very herbaceous. Grab that rye bread. Throw it in the sour cream. Throw some of this stuff on top. That looks good. The rye bread. Fluffy. Beautiful sour cream. So creamy. Oh, what a great soup. This is the Russian version of levanta muertos, literally bringing you back from the dead. The night before, you drink a lot of vodka, wake up all hungover, drink this. I love this combo. The owner was telling me this chicken soup's incredible. Look, with dill, got some carrots, chicken breast. Oh, I love these noodles. Potatoes, carrots. Let's go. Oh my God. You know, whenever I'm sick or my kids are sick, this is what we go to. We usually do the Cuban version. This is way better. It's like elevated. I love the noodles. Again, nice and herbaceous. Nice chunks of chicken, potatoes. Wow, look at the amount of noodles. Mix them with those vegetables, the dill. And right here, we have the most famous soup from Russia, the borscht. This is their national dish. It is amazing. Beets. You have chunks of beef in there. And then it always comes with this appetizer, which is pork fat. Got the rye bread, spring onion, and sour cream. So what we do is we grab some of the sour cream. Nice portion. Oh yeah, look at that. Got some of those onions, beets. Inside here, you got some beef. I love the beets. I'm a huge fan of beets. I feel healthy when I eat this, especially like this one. Oh wow, with the beef. Sometimes they have it with no meat, but I like it more with the beef. You have to add the sour cream. Over here, we have, like I said, the pork fat. It doesn't have to be cooked. Almost like bacon that hasn't been cooked. My Persian friends love doing this. It's actually amazing. Guys, have to pair with this. And next, we have the star of the show. Guys, check this out. I've never seen this. Crepe with black caviar. So this is the way we do it. We grab the crepe, throw some sour cream, get some of the dill. Needs dill, like throughout. I personally love dill. And then we go, we grab a good portion of some caviar, spread it throughout. I need a lot of caviar. It's one of my favorite things on the planet. For those of you who haven't tried caviar, they're like salty gushers. Look, this is how we do it. See that. And when I mean my salty gushers, I mean sturgeon eggs. This is the best thing that came out of Russia. My God. Salty. I love the dill. Gives it a nice, amazing, herbaceous taste. The sour cream, creamy. I love that these crepes are nice and thin and fluffy, not crispy, not too thick. Caviar. Can't knock it until you try it. I always talk about how food isn't just to eat. It is a status symbol. And this is the ultimate status symbol. When you go to a restaurant, you see people eating caviar. It means they're spending a lot of money. I don't know, guys. You let me know. Is it worth it? Like each one of these little things. I don't know how many ounces, but $200. I mean, it's delicious. I'm enjoying this one, but I might rather have a pizza or a burger. Just a nice piece of salmon. The caviar is amazing. Try it. So right here, we have the honey cake. And right over here, we have the napoleon. The honey cake goes straight into it. Beautiful layers. Cream in the middle. And everything here is homemade. If this is what Russia tastes like, count me in. Yeah, I think the Napoleon is originally French. I mean, Napoleon was French, right? Incredible crust on top. Again, multiple layers. Nice cream. You got blueberry, strawberry. Oh, the cream. Oh, this is so good. This is an incredible dessert. Personally, a chocolate guy, but sometimes I eat some of these cakes and I'm like, damn, I'm definitely a cream guy. Look at that. Beautiful cut. As Marie Antoinette once said, let the meat cake.