My girlfriend and I ate there for lunch today. I'm not normally a
big fan of east European cuisine (probably because of my grandmother's bad cooking), but I was quite impressed with the food here, as was my girlfriend.
We split a peroshki (a large pastry filled with ground veal) as an
appetizer. It was not at all greasy, and the meat inside was nicely spiced. My only complaint about it, in fact, would be that it was that the filling was a little bit on the dry side.
I ordered the "Siberian dumplings", which were small meat-filled
dumplings (I think they were filled with a pork-veal mixture), served with a very garlicky sour cream. They were delicious! The dough was cooked perfectly and the filling was *very* tasty. I also received an ample bowl of hot borsch with my dumplings. I've never had borsch before, so I can't really compare it with anything, although I thought it was quite terrific. Even my girlfriend, who doesn't normally like beets in any form, thought it was very good.
Guin (my girlfriend) ordered the "Ukrainian dumplings," which were
larger potato-filled dumplings covered in sauteed mushrooms. These were much blander than my dumplings since the filling was just plain mashed potato, sans spices. But, as plain potato dumplings go, they were good.
Lunch, for the two of us came out to $13.00. The piroshki was $2.25,
my dish was $6.00 since I got the luncheon special (an entree w/ your choice of salad, soup of the day, or borsch), and Guin's entree was $4.75. Rye bread comes with they meals. Dinners appear to be signficantly more expensive here at Rasputin's. I think I remember dinner prices being somewhere between $8 and $12.
I definitely reccomend this place for lunch. If I were closer to
San Mateo, I'd probably go there fairly often. (Business, by the way, seemed to be virtually non-existant except for us. I hope this place does a more thriving business during the week and at dinner.)
Oh, I just realized I never mentioned where this place was in SM.
It's on W 25th Ave, right next to Vinyl Solution (used records), about a block and a half north of El Camino. (About 3-4 blocks north of the San Mateo Expo Center).
-- Jim C.San Francisco Bay Area, CA