Riverfront Times (St. Louis, Missouri)
August 24, 2005 Wednesday
Simply Dvin
Is the food really as good and fresh behind the old Iron Curtain as
it is here?
By Rose Martelli
I wonder what the two women who work there — the sole employees of
this Armenian-Greek-Russian restaurant located in the Old Orchard
section of Webster Groves — are doing right now. I’m pretty sure
they’re not scrambling to turn over tables, fire up orders from the
elevator-size galley or haul ever-more stock out of the walk-ins and
lowboys. It’s not a particularly busy restaurant. In all the times
I’ve eaten at Dvin, whether stopping in for a quick solo lunch,
enjoying catch-up dinners with old pals or bringing in bunches of
friends in the hope of turning them on to my favorite
hole-in-the-wall foodie find, I have seen, in total, exactly two
other diners. Perhaps the women are instead tending to the jungle of
houseplants (cacti, dracaenas, ivy) that cram the storefront’s
entranceway and bay window. Or maybe they’re rearranging the
artificial flowers, with their shellacked-on dewdrops, that rest in
stem vases atop each of Dvin’s nine tables. There are straight lace
curtains to wash, fruit-and-floral-patterned plastic placemats to
wipe down. There are rainbow-colored ceiling fans (which remind me of
those rainbow-colored caps with the propellers on top) to dust, and
rows of framed landscape paintings on the walls and Russian nesting
dolls in the unrefrigerated deli case to keep orderly. So it’s no
wonder that when I arrive, the restaurant’s front door is often
locked, neon-lit “Open” sign be damned. When I knock, one of the
women answers in a housekeeping smock.
As I take my pick of tables, the younger woman will ditch her smock
and dutifully fetch me a plastic-sheathed menu, creased and tattered,
and a paper-napkin roll-up. She’ll also turn on some music, something
Europoppy or this one blowzy chanteuse who must be the Edith Piaf of
Greece, while the older woman retreats to the kitchen.
The waitress will jot down my order and take it to the kitchen. I
like to pretend that the back of the house is the setting for an
Eastern European sitcom/reality/cooking show. Occasionally I’ll hear
them bicker back there in their thick native tongues, and I’ll think
it’s like Sanford and Son meets It’s a Living, or the episode of
Seinfeld where Elaine couldn’t tell if the Korean ladies in the nail
salon were making fun of her. But I also dream of watching the
cook-woman work, with lots of close-up shots of her adroit, expert
hands chopping garlic and eggplant, stirring a cauldron of borscht,
rolling meat. I wish I could be a great meat-roller, but I don’t
trust my spastic knife skills to carve a pocket inside a breast or
filet without splitting the thing wide open.
And when my food arrives and I dig in, I entertain myself by
thinking: Do they realize how great their food is? Was an everyday
meal behind the old Iron Curtain really this good and fresh, this
imbued with homemade goodness?
Meat blintzes: four mounds of ground chicken — which gives the meat
an airiness and a delicacy that could never be achieved in plain old
breast meat — wrapped in crepe-thin pancakes that carry a seductive
honey flavor. Chicken Kiev: more chicken, two fist-size portions of
it rolled around a center of fresh herbs, lightly breaded like
they’ve been sprinkled with pixie dust and oh-so-lightly fried, sided
with a nimble, couscous-y rice and a dollop of cold tomato compote.
Armenian dip, a twist on standard hummus: kidney beans, fried white
onion, olive oil and sesame seeds, something like refried-bean dip
but more special, with more integrity and texture.
Roasted red peppers: delectable slices of sweet bells, marinated in
olive oil and garlic until they drip and ooze Mediterranean
sensuousness, topped with sliced black olives and crumbled feta.
Vareniky: a signature of Ukranian cuisine better known stateside by
their Polish name, pirogies — delightful and almost silly, doughy
dumplings that resemble half-cooked ravioli, coagulating into a
single mass of starch around their mashed-potato-and-cheese stuffing.
And goulash — who knew goulash could ever be this sprightly and
earthy? Another Ukranian interpretation on Dvin’s menu, it foregoes
Hungary’s sour cream and buttered noodles, allowing its watery beef
broth, assailed with herbs like cilantro, paprika and rosemary, to
take center stage.
How strange that while their food possesses a sense of sweetness and
light, the Dvin women’s own demeanors can read — at least here, in
the relatively affable land of the Midwest — as stern and humorless.
There’s a firmness to the waitress’ reply when we ask her what herbs
are in the goulash: “I don’t know. She cooks.” Later that evening,
when we inquire about dessert (baklava and napoleons are listed on
the menu), she tells us they’re all out. We suspect she just wants us
to leave.
Usually small, family-style establishments like Dvin make up for what
they can’t provide in hip cuisine and expensive flatware with
just-plain-folk personality and charm. If Dvin has a certain charm,
its cut-and-dried charmlessness is its charm.
I didn’t want to peel back the curtain (iron, lace, whatever) and
find out the true story of Dvin, partially because I’d be robbing
myself of my little fairy tales, and partially because I was worried
they’d hang up the phone on me when I put on my reporter’s hat and
called. In fact, I was instructed to show up in person if I wanted to
ask questions, so I did.
Dvin is owned by chef and Russian native Lidiya Skilioti, who bought
the place from its existing Armenian owners nine years ago. She never
cooked professionally back home, but since moving to the U.S. around
1990 she’s worked at a Bob Evans and at Brandt’s in the Loop. Her
daughter, Natalya, has been waitressing for her at Dvin for the past
seven years. They told me that their head count at the restaurant
varies widely, even on a Saturday night.
I asked Lidiya why she decided to take the plunge and buy her own
restaurant. She answered, “I love making food and everything. Here,
we do only homemade and hand-cooked. Only natural and fresh.”
A few minutes later, I thanked them for their time and got up to
leave. Lidiya headed into the kitchen once more, but Natalya
instructed me to sit tight a moment. We chatted about the weather. It
was kinda nice.
Lidiya came out from the kitchen. She passed me a to-go box. Inside
was a piece of crumb cake with a thick, creamy slab of cheese
filling.
I took it home and ate it that night. It was delicious, just as I
imagined it would be.