During the Olympics, Bosco Sports, the official Russian Olympic apparel company, rebranded the Joey Restaurant on Burrard and Robson as the Russian Bar.
I only found out because we were looking for drinks after watching Hey Rosetta and The Stars perform. I was rather impressed how beautiful the transformation into Russian branding was.
I was also impressed at the prices! All the double drinks were only $6. We were so used to $10 drinks at other restaurants and pavilions, $6 was such a steal! Joey didn’t want to abandon local patrons with auto gratuity or increased prices and I commend them for that.
Bosco Sports arranged for Russian chefs and bartenders to work along with Joey employees. We sat down with Sous Chef Timothy Teljuco to talk about his experience. When the Russian chef first came – he spoke no english and the Menu as well as the recipes were all in Russian. In the cooking world though, language barriers quickly go away and substituted with pointing at different ingredients and dishes, watching how things are done, tasting and smelling. As Chef Timothy Teljuco and Chef Chris Kaiser put it, Cooking is a universal language. After a few days, the kitchen was working in unison where Chef Teljuco’s team could coordinate the timing of their dishes and the Russian dishes. By the end both teams picked up a few words in each language and Joey could make all the Russian dishes for their wrapup party.
Russian cuisine is influenced by its harsh climates and rural populations of peasants. Basic Ingredients such as potatoes and beets are popular. In the 18-19th century, there was a large French influence on Russia and vice versa. Before the Russian influence, French food would be served family style – all dishes brought out to the center of the table and shared. The term Service à la Russe means that courses are brought out sequentially which is how most restaurants serve food today. The French influence can be seen in the Russian pancakes (similar to crepes) and many desserts. Since Russia borders China, there’s no surprise that there are Asian influences in the cooking as well.
The Piroshky seemed exactly like Chinese buns with meat.
The menu at Joey consisted of a reduced selection of favourites from Joey and Russian items
such as Perogies (dumplings), Borscht (Beets soup), Piroshky,
Herring Salad and Russian Salad.
The Herring Salad (main picture) is an interesting combination of Beets, Carrots, Herring, Potatoes, Green onion with a Mayonnaise sauce. I’ve never had anything like it before – the strong flavours and textures made it something different and memorable.
The desserts included Pancakes, Dumplings stuffed with cherries, Tiramisu and assorted tartlets.
You can really see the French influences in these desserts.
All of the food represented hearty staples and favourites of Russia. As for the Joey menu, not surprisingly the Russian clientel favoured all Meat and Potato dishes. For the choice of drinks, Vodka was not the number one seller but Whiskey was.
We got some recipes and will attempt to make Borscht. We’ll write about our experience soon!
Thanks Chef Timothy Teljuco and Chef Chris Kaiser for showing us the Bosco Bar before it was converted back into Joey.
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Tags: Beets, Borscht, bosco sports, Burrard, Joey's, potatoes, Russia, russian bar, Russian food, Sochi 2014, Timothy Teljuco
