Russia: Street Food Bite and Booze of the 2014 World Cup

As the heat blazes on in Brazil at the FIFA World Cup 2014, we sit down to another street food delicacy and cocktail from Russia (playing Belgium at 11am CDT): Potato Blini and "From Moscow with Love." From the last winter Olympics we learned things can be cold and a bit dreary in Russia, but let's perk up our appetites and see what they have going on.

Photo Credit: foodperestroika.com

A plethora of Russian pancake recipes exist, but this one for potato blini sounded scrumptious to me! Technically, these blini would be called oladi in Russia because of their thickness. Simple and bland in flavor, potato blini are basically pancakes with riced potatoes mixed in. I'm sure they keep you warm in the Russian winter time, but for our purposes, they'll hold us over until USA match at 5pm.

Bite and Booze Bonus: They're pictured with some type of caviar or beaded honey on top, but try getting your hands on some ghost pepper infused caviar--that'll take these from bland to GOAL in no time.

An ode to the old 007 film, To Russia, With Love starring Sean Connery, From Moscow with Love features vodka. Shocked, I presume. This fun play on a vodka soda will get you through the match just fine! Unless you're dead set on using an actual Russian vodka, I suggest swinging by Calandro's Supermarket and grabbing some of the Donner-Peliter Oryza Vodka. It adds loads of flavor to cocktails because of the long-grain rice from Crowley, LA it's made with.