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From The Rough Guide New York City
Restaurant 2003
Author: Daniel Young
Faced with stiff
competition from the glitzier nightclubs in and around Brighton Beach, Primorski
endures as the affordable and now quaint option for Russian-style banquets with
a Georgian-Jewish slant. Its ballroom is flanked on both sides by
illuminated, painted-glass wall plaques bearing colorful seascapes and the
scripted word Primorski-"by the water." On a bandstand sheathed in
sheets of reflective yellow plastic, a quartet of three vocalists and one
keyboardist performs Russian, American, and Continental pop deep into the the
night. Only the food is more relentlessly entertaining.
The customary way to eat at Brooklyn's
Russian nightclubs is from a pre-set banquet menu. Primorski's prix fixe
(from $25 per person on weeknights to $35 on weekends) includes overlapping
onslaughts of warm yeasty flatbread, hot appetizers, pickled vegetables, smoked
fish platters, cold vegetable salads, cold cuts, Russian crępes,
several hot entrees, assorted shashlik, fresh fruit, desserts, coffee or tea,
bottomless soft drinks, and one bottle (per five diners) of Kremlovskya vodka.
For anyone unfamiliar with cuisine, the advantage of the banquet is that there's
no difficulty communicating with the waiters and you get to try many things
without any nasty surprises when the bill comes. The disadvantage is that
you probably don't want all that food, and that the superb appetizers fill you
up long before the shashlik arrives. Mind you, nothing about those
mediocre kebabs will have you regretting any initial lack of restraint.
Should you choose from
the extremely inexpensive a la carte menu, the starters you don't want to miss
are the potato dumplings with grilled onions ($3.90), the basturma (thinly
sliced dried beef; $3.90), the gefilte fish (Primorski's version of the Jewish
poached fishcakes are pâté-like; $5), eggplant caviar ($2.50), and khachapuri (a
warm, lightly salty, fabulously flaky, and gently crusty Georgian cheese bread;
$3). If entrees are still relevant, consider the wonderful stuffed cabbage
($6.25) or stuffed grape leaves ($6.75) instead of the grilled meats.
Daily soup-and-entree lunch specials are $5.99, vodka not included.
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