OurHalifax.com

Exterior of Laura's Cafe on Barrington Street

Finally, a place downtown Halifax where I can enjoy some home made Russian food. Now, mind you I am in the lucky position of just going to my parents house where my mom and grandmother are more than happy to feed me this type of food as well, but a Russian restaurant has been a long time coming to Halifax and I couldn’t be happier that it is open now.

My friends Larissa and Sasha opened up Laura’s cafe, located at 1022 Barrington Street about 2 weeks ago and I have already gone 3 times over the past weekend alone. With the help of their family staff they transformed a space that used to be occupied by a Laundromat into a bright and inviting establishment, which has already been host to a wedding and a birthday dinner.

As a side note, Laura’s does also serve traditional Canadian dishes, and has lots of student friendly all day breakfast and lunch options as well, however I’ll focus on the Russian cuisine. So what is Russian food? Many different things, I’ll go through a few of my favourites.

First of all there are many appetizers, it’s important to get as many as possible, and sharing is encouraged. Many Russian meals start with a first course of soup, and borscht is of course on the menu. Borscht is a delicious traditional Ukrainian soup which is recognized for its bright red color, coming from the main ingredient of beets. It’s cooked on a meat stock, and also features many other vegetables in the mix. It is typically served with sour cream – yes you put it directly into the soup, transforming it from red to pink. Sounds strange, I know, but it makes it even better.

Pelmenni w/ sour cream - I ate half of them before remembering to take a photo

There are also a few traditional Russian salads such as Stolichniy (‘Capital’) and Vinaigrette, both are great. Next we have the meat dishes, and pelmenni is my favourite hands down. Pelmenni are little hot dumplings filled with ground beef and also served with sour cream. They are greasy (in the best meaning of the word), and absolutely delicious. You can either order them in an appetizer or main dish portion. There are also blini or blinchiki (crepes), which are very popular in Russian cuisine. These are filled with your choice of meat, vegetables, potato & mushroom etc. These are also of course served with sour cream.

For the main dishes there is a great selection of shishkabobs – meat skewers served with salad and rice, stews, fish dishes and a few other items. All of these are a must have, and are cooked directly on the spot on a daily basis. The owners would rather run out of something that day than serve you something that has been laying around in the back of the freezer.

Shishkabobs cooking at Laura's Cafe (photo courtesy of Andrew Shalin)

If you can’t tell already I give Laura’s cafe my 100% seal of approval, and I strongly urge anybody that reads this to go there are soon as possible and give it a try. It’s delicious, unique, and a local downtown business – what more could you ask for? Go eat at Laura’s tomorrow, bring your friends, and check them out on Facebook here.