Best Down-Home Russian Cooking

The name means "Russian ravioli sold here." Scoop up your fill of pale meat dumplings, pierogi stuffed with cheese, potato or cabbage stew, and cherry varenikis for about four dollars a plate. A variety of soups includes Moscow-style borscht. Communication with the staff is limited if you don't know Russian; they do, however, speak the universal language of grunt and point. The little bistro is situated inside the Driftwood hotel, in a second-floor overlook bubble. The front window looks out over Collins Avenue, with its pedestrians blithely ignoring traffic and lines forming outside Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House across the street. The view out back is of the hotel's innards and a small tiki bar and, beyond that, sparkling Biscayne Bay. For some reason the modest dining room is divided into "bistro" and "café," with signs proclaiming that patrons are expected to tip ten percent if they sit on the bistro side of the room and fifteen percent if they sit on the café side. They claim to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Those wacky Slavs.