Tuesday of this week we tried out
title=”Fournos Cafe”>Fournos Cafe. Olessia had just finished up two
days of working full time and her second job on both Monday and
Tuesday. This was her first week back from vacation. And Tuesday her
paperwork for INS was all set.

I’ve been to Fournos for lunch and it was good. A little pricey, but
the food was good and filling and the service was great. Since Olessia
typically gets home from her long day around 9:30pm, I wasn’t sure we’d
be able to make it there before the kitchen closes at 10pm. But she
ended up getting home a lot earlier and we were able to enjoy a great
dinner.

Earlier last week I had researched local Russian restaurants. There
really isn’t too many in Cleveland except for one called The Globe. But
on Tuesday evening, I was reminded of The Globe and was told they had
great food. Olessia has had a taste for a really good soup for some
time and has always been disappointed when we go to a restaurant and
they only have one soup: the soup of the day. And its usually a very
unexciting soup.

So we stopped at The Globe for dinner not knowing what to expect (that’s
part of the fun!). She was immediately happy. She found borsch soup,
several Russian salads, and a lot of traditional Russian home style
dishes. I went with the Keiv with porojak (not sure of the spelling on
that). The porojak is awesome. It has a sturdy, yet flakey, pastry
which is about an eighth of an inch in thickness. And its folded over
like you would see for pastry. And inside is a meat filling. Mmm!
Olessia said they are very difficult to make. Olessia had the borsch
soup which also came with a porojak. She also had a dish called “From
Russia with Love” which was 4 Russian style pancakes each with a mound
of black caviar. The pancakes look like pita bread, but actually have a
smooth consistancy (almost similar to a regular pancake, but very thin
and dense and not as dry or fluffy). These are folded over about 4
times to make a triangle shape. And then a generous spoon full of
caviar was placed at the corner of the traingle. You then can spread
the caviar all over the pancake and eat (and they serve 4 of these on a
plate). It sounded like this is more of a breakfast meal, but it does
get served as dinner very often too. I had tried some. Both her soup
and caviar dish were awesome. I opted for dessert. It was hard to
pick. But ended up with this chocolate cake that vanilla waffer-like
layers to it between chocolate cake. Before beginning, Olessia told me
Russians use spoons to eat cake. The server brought out two forks, but
we opted for the spoons anyways. Oh the cake was good! Olessia said
she doesn’t like “cake” as we Americans know it as. But this cake was
definitely a traditional Russian cake and she loved it.

Fournos can be found in Independence on Rockside Road. Check their
website for directions. I haven’t been able to find a website for The
Globe. Its located in Akron on Portage Trails.