Russian Vodka Room — Restaurant in New York

I heard this place from my East-European born Israeli-reside PI, who strongly recommends the borscht and the food here. My love for Borscht was really a consequence of being in a lab with over 50% people being East-European heritage. I was, let’s say, quite marinated by now. And I found the East-European cuisine is quite suitable for winter and thus brought my mom with me.

App Olivie Potato Salad Ordered this because they don’t have shuba that day(what a shame!) but to my surprise the salad wasn’t as greasy as I expected. There is nice ratio of mayo to potato, carrots, ham, egg, and with quite decent amount of pickled veg and dills. The overall taste is creamy but still kinda refreshing. I pleasantly enjoyed with the bread they offered.

Hot Borscht Absolutely worthy of my visit. Very warm, hearty, vibrant soup with a deep red color from beets. A bowl of earthy, sweet, and tangy flavors, with tender chunks of beets, cabbage, potatoes, and meaty bite. The broth is rich and slightly sour, and I indulged it validly with few dollops of sour cream that added freshness and creaminess. It was made extra comforting and satisfying with the slices of crusty bread.

Entree Beef Stroganoff Beef, mushroom, and cream should be BFF FOREVER. The rich, creamy dish with tender beef strips sautéed with onions and mushrooms, all coated in a savory sour cream-based sauce is bursting with deep and comforting umami flavors. The buckwheat are nutty, earthy grain-like seed that makes me to believe these are savory bobas with a little chew dancing and bouncing on my tongue. A classic that wasn’t done wrong (and hard to do it wrong).

I thoroughly enjoyed the food and would love to come again for the food. Strongly appreciate the amount of pickled veggies they sneak in onto the plate to balance all the possible grease. The portion is ample. The decor is very disco like, with blue and red lighting all over the place. The service… suboptimal. The waitress was nice and sweet but it was so obvious they don’t have enough people to care for all customers. Generally a very pleasant dinner, if you don’t mind the slow service and being overlooked for a bit due to short-staffed. (Maybe food to-go isn’t a bad...

January 2nd, 2023

It's disorganized to have one person running the bar, the bussing, and the food distribution. In the three hours my boyfriend and I sat there we waited 30 minutes for a martini and a beer (served in a bottle). Then we waited another hour to order more drinks. We got the ginger shot and garlic pepper and dill shot. While the shots were interesting, I wouldn't wait 45 minutes for them again. We waited and watched as the bartender/ waitress chatted with other patrons for 20 minutes.

The kicker wasn't even the wait on the drinks. The true kicker was that my boyfriend ordered the beef dumplings when we ordered the shots and after an hour and a half we still had no dumplings. We ended up getting the check (without the dumplings) but we were left with the feeling that they took our order and never delivered the order to the kitchen. This was a bummer because we came to this establishment for the dumplings he craved and we left without having had them.

won't be spending more money here if I can help

January 12th, 2023

So my boyfriend begged me to give this please a second chance. He speaks Russian and wanted to practice his Russian so I gave it a go. One more time because second chances are a thing.

It was awful. Terrible experience. Like we both left agreeing to never come here again. We say that as neighbors. We live a block away. It's hard to feel so negative about a place so close by. The reason: it took forever for them to open two beers and at the end of the night they attempted to charge us for two things we didn't order.

Being the strong New York woman I am, I told them of mistakes and they fixed it but in my eyes mistakes like that shouldn't be made on well-seasoned New Yorkers. Especially neighbors of theirs. They will not be getting business for us or our...

Everyone that leaves a review for this place is probably paid.

We came with a group of 11 people, expecting a fun night out, but it turned into a complete disaster. They tried to overcharge us from the start, and even their staff seemed ashamed—some were literally trying to give us our money back.

At Russian restaurants, the food is supposed to be served to you as part of the experience, but that didn’t happen. They just dumped the food on the table, and the portions were so small I left hungry. Worse, the alcohol that was supposed to be included in our package? It was never served or even mentioned. We paid for it, and they just ignored it completely.

The music was another disaster. It stopped at 10 PM, and the musician actually asked us for tips. We gave him $60, and then he walked out, saying, “That’s it for tonight.” After that, we had to use their Bluetooth speaker just to have music at all.

To make things worse, the owner’s son got involved and started "negotiating" with us, forcing us to pay $280 per person for what? No drinks, no service, and a completely unprofessional experience.

This was one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had. Do yourself a favor and avoid this place. It’s...