Varenichnaya

i asked waiter to give me high chair for my toddler she told me she will give it after i order food, my toddler was crying and asking for seat, but waiter still didn’t want to bring high chair, so i pick it up by myself. Second time I called to make an delivery order, and the same waiter picked up the phone, and she rude on me. waiter fine only when her boss in there.

Tiny place but we were seated immediately on a Saturday afternoon. We had pelmeni, some lamb kebab, and cherry varenniki. Everything was delicious and it was enough food for 2 people. We paid a little over $ 20 for everything. We also bought some frozen pelmeni and varenniki to take home

Ethnic Russian food, as good as it get! Had tasty Borsht soup, friends had the Serniki. Family-​feel and ambience, with owner or manager sitting in the back most table administering the restaurant. Bring Cash! doesn’t accept credit cards.

Simple and delicious. I’m always hesitant to try Vareniki that aren’t my grandma’s but these nailed it. Get a big bowl of Vareniki or pilmeni with a glass of kompot and you’ll be a happy camper.

Served last despite waiting the longest. A few groups were served before us despite coming in 15 minutes prior to them. This happened twice! I was with my Russian boyfriend and they refused to speak to me once. All requests ignored and I had to wait 10 minutes for the bill. I was very kind and I got the worst attitude. All the Russian diners were treated great. This happened TWO TIMES. racists don’t get any of my money.

We really loved this place. Chicken pelmini in broth, mushroom potato verniki, cottage cheese blintz, health salad. All delicious and for a good price. It was my first time at this spot but not with this food, and it was all very good. I want to go back and try some of the meat dishes.

This is good eastern european food. no frills, nothing special or fancy, but very convenient and nice enough

Order the Pelmeni Siberian meat dumplings and pour some red sauce they have on the table. Yummy!!!

Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies on Perogies.

Great Russian food and friendly Russian service!
This place never disappoints. The vareniki, salads, shish kebabs and the borscht are always great. Better than Nargis for sure and also has a more homey vibe.

I’ve been to Varenichnaya 3 times over the past year and a half with friends and family and I was very satisfied. It is cozy mom and pop place that serves homemade food. The pelmenis are very good, I love the vareniki in broth, the lamb shashlik is well seasoned Central Asian style, Lagman Uzbeki was hearty, the beef stroganoff was rich and yummy. The French fries are homemade (not pre-​fab frozen). The buckwheat (kasha?) I found bland, but I guess it supposed to be because Ive had it other places and it was the same everywhere. To drink we had the kompot a kin of fruit punch. The service was fine, attentive and not overbearing. The waiter was patient and seemed happy to answer my questions. The prices are very reasonable Dinner and drinks for 4 and a child came to $ 57.

I will spare this place some stars, for the sake of good food; HOWEVER, upon stumbling this eatery after a sweaty gym workout, my cousin and I left dissatisfied. Let me give you some imagery: my cousin and I are not the most. Mature?-looking for our ages. With that being said, we could’ve passed for roughly two 17-​year-​olds. The waiters did not treat us fairly, as they consistently served other guests first, even though my cousin and I came & ordered first. The waiter would throw smirks at us, thinking, we «17-​year-​olds» don’t & wouldn’t mind him serving others before us. Eventually, we informed him that his smirks were not working & that we would leave if the food does not come in the next 8 minutes (we were waiting fairly long already, & bare in mind, this is after our sweaty workout, we are hungry). He returned with a great-​looking dish, apologizing, however, for not having some dish or ingredient that we ordered, & placing the dish we didn’t quite order on our table. We devoured it, nonetheless. The owner of this eatery was sitting nearby, & heard our disappointments that were regarded to the waiter. The owner offered us free drinks to accommodate the service. As hungry individuals who soon became thirsty, we accepted. With better service, & maybe a bit renewed decoration, this diner would surpass my moderate standards.

Having recently moved back to America from Ukraine, this place was a gem of a find. Stepping through the doors was like stepping through a wormhole back to Ukraine.
We ordered cherry verenyky ($ 6.50 for a plate), shashlyk ($ 3.50 for a skewer), and borshch ($ 5.50 for a good size bowl). It was all really delicious and pretty well priced. The shashlyk was particularly seasoned and delicious.
The service is just fine. I’ve had way worse service in «purely American» joints. The wait staff were polite, attentive, and quiet. No reason to be needlessly effusive. Maybe our speaking Russian to our server made our experience better? He seemed really nice anyway, but I would still keep in mind small cultural nuances.
They do not accept credit cards, but you could get out of here for well under $ 10 per person, so what’s the problem?

THEY DO NOT ACCEPT CARDS. I came here after checking Unilocal with a few friends and we all only had cards. There is a small sign on the front door that none of us saw when we walked in that said they don’t take cards. Of course, we find this out when we’re ready to pay. One of the employees, who was really nice about it, told us where the nearest ATM was, so it all worked out in the end.
I’m studying Russian in school and love the food, so I was excited to come to a restaurant in Brighton Beach as there aren’t really any Russian restaurants where I’m from.
The service was about what I was expecting: the waiter was nice to me when I tried to speak Russian but as soon as my friends started speaking English, he got a little short with them. This doesn’t really offend me, it’s more of a cultural difference.
The food was good, but nothing that special. I got the borsch, which I highly recommend. I also got an order of vareniki that were alright. For a restaurant that’s named after the food, I was pretty underwhelmed.
One of my friends ordered a soup and order of vareniki like I did and our food was served at the same time. My other friend ordered something else (I can’t remember what), but she was served over 20 minutes after we were, which was awkward because you don’t want to be rude and eat your food before everyone is served but you don’t want your food to get cold.
I would come back for the borsch, but probably not anything else.

Fresh, cheap, fast and tasty.

What i can tell about this place… AMAZING! The food is delicious, especially Vareniki, Lagman and Solyanka. Me and my husband are all the time in there, and we have tried almost everything and i can’t say anything bad about food. And the service is good too, you don’t need to wait your food for long time even if there are many people. Now about prices: tasty food for the back!
If you are gonna be around Brighton Beach, come to Varenichnaya and no doubt you will like it.

My group of 11, wet and cold from a New Year’s Polar Bear dip, walked 15 minutes down the road from Coney Island to Varenichnaya. It is a small spot and we waited about 30 minutes for our two tables… but they were patient with us and sat us as quickly as they could.
We ordered many things. I am a vegetarian and found there were several things I could eat. The Borscht is really, really tasty. It’s simple and vegetal and wonderful. The potatoes and mushrooms are stick-​to-​your-​ribs good.
We ordered vareniki and when I asked for a side of sour cream, they obliged… it helped. I’m used to perogies, which are larger versions of vareniki, and those require sour cream in my book.
They did seem to run out of a few things — and then later we saw other tables with them. I tried to order kebabs and was told they were out, but then later saw a table get served. They were generally apologetic and offered to bring substitutions, but there is no replacement for Kasha, Manti and Kebabs. That said, we were stuffed and would not have been able to eat it all anyway!
It’s worth a trip, to be sure… and next time I’m bringing a Russian friend just to make sure we weren’t getting treated like foreigners! But either way, the place is charming, small and friendly, and I can recommend it totally.

In Soviet Russia food eat you!
A Brighton Beach food trip had been in the works for over a year, so despite major complications on the Q train we finally made it out to little Odessa. Aside from vodka the extent of my knowledge of Russian cuisine began and ended with beef stroganoff, so I decided to shake things up and head to Varenichnaya, home of Russian dumplings, or ravioli.
For all the Russian dumpling virgins out there, Varenichnaya serves two basic genus of dumplings: vareniki and pelmeni. Vareniki are Ukranian-​style dumplings that are boiled and covered with butter, whereas Pelmeni are Russian-​style dumplings that usually have a very thin wrapper and whose fillings are usually raw before cooking.
Our vareniki were crescent-​shaped and topped with fried onions. The pelmeni were boiled, a little bit bigger than quarter-​sized, filled to the brim with meat, more spherical than not, and came with a dollop of sour cream on top. That’s the basic gist of these dumplings, but the pictures fill out the rest of the story nicely.
We started with fried cabbage vareniki as well as chicken and Siberian (dissident) meat pelmeni. The vareniki had a simple and good flavor and disappeared quickly. The pelmeni were okay, though they needed some seasoning to help them be a little bit more flavorful than plain boiled meat.
We also sampled a couple other items on the menu, the fried potatoes with mushrooms, which came topped with chopped dill and were surprisingly not remotely greasy — very good, and cheese blintzes, which were par for the course.
The food here is simple, filling, and well-​priced — I think it’s like 17 pelmeni and a dozen vareniki for $ 6.50 each.
This isn’t highbrow Russian cooking, but it’s good all the same. If I lived nearby I’d probably drop in now and again, but it’s a long trek for me. However, if you’re curious about the cuisine this is a fine place to start.
PS — I almost forgot the most important part! Varenichnaya is BYOB, which includes BYO vodka. What a country!
In Soviet Russia vodka drink you!

Some people complain about the service, but remember that there are cultural differences here. Do not expect the servers to be exactly like they are a your everyday American restaurant.
The food is definitely good. I sampled the Siberian Meat and Chicken Pelmeni, Fried Cabbage Vareniki, Cheese Blintzes, and Fried Potatoes and Mushrooms. Everything was flavorful and interesting. The Pelmeni came with butter/​margarine and sour cream, which served as a good dipping sauce. The Vareniki had a bit more character on their own, and did not need the extras. The Blintzes were quite good, but next time I would like to try some of the other flavors to get a better handle on the quality. The potatoes were quite good. Sliced in circles, they were not greasy at all, and the fresh dill sprinkled on them was a nice touch. Of course, as an added bonus, we brought our own vodka and had a nice drink with our meal.
If you happen to be in the neighborhood, and you want a nice, casual meal, this is a good place to go. However, I am not sure it’s worth making a special trip just for the food.

I am so incredibly disappointed with the abysmal service and mediocre food my friend and I received here last night. We walked in excess of 15 miles from Lincoln Center to Brighton Beach, and the closer we got, the weather got darker and windier and foggier and colder, like we were walking into a storm.
Maybe we should have taken this as a bad omen. But we were so hopeful, almost anything would have made us happy after our painful journey through the elements. I repeat, almost anything. We weren’t expecting much, yet somehow we were still really let down.
After we ordered our appetizers (Pickled Vegetable Salad, and Veal Pelmeni) our waitress sighed and took away our menus. I ask for the menus back, and she sighed again. We ask for tea, and she sighed again. After we ordered our entrees (Manti, Rack of Lamb Kebab, Lulu Kebab) she sighed really loudly and took away our menus once again. I ask for the menus back, then of course she sighed once more then disappeared into the kitchen.
I’m sorry, but I was so upset I couldn’t even enjoy my food, which wasn’t very enjoyable to begin with. Meanwhile, the manager or perhaps owner was sitting at a nearby table reading a newspaper, not doing anything to provide any assistance, with all her trash and groceries all over the table, further adding to the level of disorganization and coldness to this place.
There are so many better alternatives around. Go to Café Glechik instead.