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I had heard about this Ukranian bar/restaurant called Red Square from my Russian friend Stan. He told me about how this one time he was having dinner at this place on a quiet weekday, and the place gets taken down by a SWAT team. Seriously. People were eating, and all of a sudden the doors come crashing down and a bunch of commandos take over the place, arrest the owner and a couple other people, make everyone stand up against a wall and give them a rigorous pat-down. They shut the place down. "Some illegal activity. Ukranians." said Stan with a shrug at the time.
So when I found that the place had reopened in the middle of Baltimore, I had to go, naturally.
A friend of mine said he knew the bartender well, but he bailed on me so I went alone. The Red Square seemed innocuous enough from the outside, so I opened the door and stepped into darkness. Once my eyes got back, I realised I was in this dimly-lit room that looked like it had been a dungeon before someone decided to throw in a few cheap tables and some ragged upholstery (all red of course). I swear I could smell old dried blood from past torture sessions. On either side of the door I'd just walked in were bouncers with fists as big as my face. The restaurant was completely empty except for one table where there were a couple of men sitting in grey double breasted suits smoking cigars, with swarthy bald dudes built like tanks standing at their shoulders. By this time my insides were already beginning to churn a little because I had clearly walked into a meeting where these guys were either deciding how best to smuggle in the next consignment of rolex watches or deciding which rival gang member's knees to break. I tried a friendly wave but they ignored me and went back to discussing shattered patellae. I walked over stiffly (to conceal the mild trembling) to the bar anyway, because by then I had decided to drink something at this place no matter what. Plus with images from the dungeon in Pulp Fiction flitting through my mind, I genuinely needed a drink.
At the bar, there was this one very worn out Slavic looking woman in high heels and a leather and fishnet kind of dress that strained to keep her fat rolls in check. She gave me a quick up-and-down, decided I had no money for whatever service she was going to offer, and went back to smoking what smelled like old sweaty feet. Behind the bar, there were three more Russians/Ukranians, one of whom had a barely concealed shoulder holster. I tried not to stare, but they were friendly so I started chatting a bit. Turns out their names were Vladimir, Oleg and Leon (I'm not making this up) and they had a total of twenty teeth among them. I tried shaking Leon's hand, but he apologized and said he couldn't; he held up his fist, which was swollen and bloody. "Fight", he said by way of explanation. I gulped, but mistaking my anxious look for worry about his well-being, he added "You should haff seen ze other guy!", and all three guffawed in unison. To further drive home his masculinity (as if this were necessary), Leon showed me some of his scars. He has a 6 inch gash on his jaw from a knife fight in Uzbekistan. The most I could muster was a half inch scar on my thumb from cutting myself while making a glider in 7th grade, which I showed him with gusto and some pride. The three grunted, but I think it was politeness more than genuine appreciation.
I decided to open the menu and talk about the food to try to change the topic to something less testosteroney. We decided to get me some bliny, which is like a crepe. After he yelled out my order in Russian to the Slavic woman (so I guess she waited tables too) Vlad realized I needed a drink, so he asked me "Vot beer you vant? Ve haf zigz beers", and he pointed to a row of bottles dutifully named "Beer No.1", "Beer No.2" all the way to "Beer No.6". Since I was still a little scared to ask too many questions, I asked for No.6. and get a three-quarter liter bottle of what actually turned out to be a pretty decent porter. It tasted like it was about 20% alcohol though, and I knew I'd have to man up and down the whole thing in front of these guys. So while I knew I was heading for a killer hangover, it did soothe my frazzled nerves a bit (it was probably killing cells in my liver and brain as well, but hey). I noticed Leon was looking at me expectantly, so I took another swig, tried not to wince, and mumbled something appreciatively.
But Leon wasn't done. In a very lets-cut-the-crap-and-see-if-you're-a-real-man kind of tone, he asked me "Ssso you vont zome REEYAL russian drinkz?" and I think I nodded. So he put down a shot glass, reached under the bar, pulled out a glass AK-47 and actually "shot" me a gigantic vodka shot. I got served a 4 ounce shot from a gun. I must've turned white (I'm not sure what this means for Indian people - maybe a weird ochre) because they all chortled mercilessly. This had gotten the attention of the mafia gang at table 1, so they stopped and started looking on expectantly, and now all of a sudden I was the scrawny Indian dude in the spotlight ready to be the joke of the week. That made me all incensed, so, as the ambassador of some 1 billion people, I took a deep breath and downed the drink. What followed is pretty undescribable, but the closest I can get is that it felt like someone tied a pound of garlic and a dead sewer rat to a cactus, set it on fire and shoved it down my throat.
But I'm proud to tell you that it stayed down. Sure I coughed and hacked and burped fire, and my nose was running and my ears were ringing, but the drink stayed down. I looked at Vlad in semi-disbelief and suppressed agony, and through bleary eyes I saw his gap-toothed grin, as he informed me, "Thet vass garlic vodka."
I stuffed my face with the bliny that had arrived to save my esophagus from certain annihilation, and decided that I had had enough Russian/Ukranian cultural education for the day. I got up unsteadily to pay up, but they wouldn't accept money (really), so I staggered out of the bar, completely smashed but happy and somewhat proud of having passed the Russian/Ukranian man test.
ps: ALL my bodily secretions smelled of garlic the next couple of days. Garlic Vodka is not for the faint of heart.
So when I found that the place had reopened in the middle of Baltimore, I had to go, naturally.
A friend of mine said he knew the bartender well, but he bailed on me so I went alone. The Red Square seemed innocuous enough from the outside, so I opened the door and stepped into darkness. Once my eyes got back, I realised I was in this dimly-lit room that looked like it had been a dungeon before someone decided to throw in a few cheap tables and some ragged upholstery (all red of course). I swear I could smell old dried blood from past torture sessions. On either side of the door I'd just walked in were bouncers with fists as big as my face. The restaurant was completely empty except for one table where there were a couple of men sitting in grey double breasted suits smoking cigars, with swarthy bald dudes built like tanks standing at their shoulders. By this time my insides were already beginning to churn a little because I had clearly walked into a meeting where these guys were either deciding how best to smuggle in the next consignment of rolex watches or deciding which rival gang member's knees to break. I tried a friendly wave but they ignored me and went back to discussing shattered patellae. I walked over stiffly (to conceal the mild trembling) to the bar anyway, because by then I had decided to drink something at this place no matter what. Plus with images from the dungeon in Pulp Fiction flitting through my mind, I genuinely needed a drink.
At the bar, there was this one very worn out Slavic looking woman in high heels and a leather and fishnet kind of dress that strained to keep her fat rolls in check. She gave me a quick up-and-down, decided I had no money for whatever service she was going to offer, and went back to smoking what smelled like old sweaty feet. Behind the bar, there were three more Russians/Ukranians, one of whom had a barely concealed shoulder holster. I tried not to stare, but they were friendly so I started chatting a bit. Turns out their names were Vladimir, Oleg and Leon (I'm not making this up) and they had a total of twenty teeth among them. I tried shaking Leon's hand, but he apologized and said he couldn't; he held up his fist, which was swollen and bloody. "Fight", he said by way of explanation. I gulped, but mistaking my anxious look for worry about his well-being, he added "You should haff seen ze other guy!", and all three guffawed in unison. To further drive home his masculinity (as if this were necessary), Leon showed me some of his scars. He has a 6 inch gash on his jaw from a knife fight in Uzbekistan. The most I could muster was a half inch scar on my thumb from cutting myself while making a glider in 7th grade, which I showed him with gusto and some pride. The three grunted, but I think it was politeness more than genuine appreciation.
I decided to open the menu and talk about the food to try to change the topic to something less testosteroney. We decided to get me some bliny, which is like a crepe. After he yelled out my order in Russian to the Slavic woman (so I guess she waited tables too) Vlad realized I needed a drink, so he asked me "Vot beer you vant? Ve haf zigz beers", and he pointed to a row of bottles dutifully named "Beer No.1", "Beer No.2" all the way to "Beer No.6". Since I was still a little scared to ask too many questions, I asked for No.6. and get a three-quarter liter bottle of what actually turned out to be a pretty decent porter. It tasted like it was about 20% alcohol though, and I knew I'd have to man up and down the whole thing in front of these guys. So while I knew I was heading for a killer hangover, it did soothe my frazzled nerves a bit (it was probably killing cells in my liver and brain as well, but hey). I noticed Leon was looking at me expectantly, so I took another swig, tried not to wince, and mumbled something appreciatively.
But Leon wasn't done. In a very lets-cut-the-crap-and-see-if-you're-a-real-man kind of tone, he asked me "Ssso you vont zome REEYAL russian drinkz?" and I think I nodded. So he put down a shot glass, reached under the bar, pulled out a glass AK-47 and actually "shot" me a gigantic vodka shot. I got served a 4 ounce shot from a gun. I must've turned white (I'm not sure what this means for Indian people - maybe a weird ochre) because they all chortled mercilessly. This had gotten the attention of the mafia gang at table 1, so they stopped and started looking on expectantly, and now all of a sudden I was the scrawny Indian dude in the spotlight ready to be the joke of the week. That made me all incensed, so, as the ambassador of some 1 billion people, I took a deep breath and downed the drink. What followed is pretty undescribable, but the closest I can get is that it felt like someone tied a pound of garlic and a dead sewer rat to a cactus, set it on fire and shoved it down my throat.
But I'm proud to tell you that it stayed down. Sure I coughed and hacked and burped fire, and my nose was running and my ears were ringing, but the drink stayed down. I looked at Vlad in semi-disbelief and suppressed agony, and through bleary eyes I saw his gap-toothed grin, as he informed me, "Thet vass garlic vodka."
I stuffed my face with the bliny that had arrived to save my esophagus from certain annihilation, and decided that I had had enough Russian/Ukranian cultural education for the day. I got up unsteadily to pay up, but they wouldn't accept money (really), so I staggered out of the bar, completely smashed but happy and somewhat proud of having passed the Russian/Ukranian man test.
ps: ALL my bodily secretions smelled of garlic the next couple of days. Garlic Vodka is not for the faint of heart.
Yeah, so random SWAT raids suck.
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