Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990 TAG: 9004070213
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
Others are wondering "Where's the beef?"
"I had to come and try it," said Robert Foxhall of Chesapeake. "I always try to eat a different variety of food. This is wonderful ethnic fare."
Foxhall left the stand at the Waterside Festival Marketplace with a dozen piroshkis - which look like elongated egg rolls - for co-workers at his office.
Danny Crocker of Norfolk found the piroshkis a bit greasy, but "so are french fries and I love french fries."
In January, McDonald's opened its first franchise in the Soviet Union and is serving up to 50,000 people a day. The restaurant here, named Piroshkis, a joint venture between Soviet and American investors, opened this week on the Norfolk waterfront.
The Soviet partner is Tomak-Kiev. Mark Aynbinder, a Soviet emigre and president of the American partners, described the company as the largest Soviet manufacturer of food processing equipment.
Local officials and Aynbinder say the joint venture is the first of its kind in the United States between investors from the two countries in recent memory. The U.S. Department of Commerce said they had no records to indicate otherwise.
The eatery was established in Norfolk partly because sailors from Soviet navy ships that visited last summer got a warm welcome from the community. Also, Aynbinder initiated contacts with friends in the Ukrainian city of Kiev that got the venture off the ground.
Piroshkis takes its name from the staple finger food of the Soviet Union. It is a pastry stuffed with potatoes and mushrooms, or beef and rice, or jam, or beef and fish, and deep fried.
The restaurant also offers Russian pancakes, Russian donuts, Russian coffee and Russian tea.
Ellen Landrum of Norfolk said she came to try the fare out of curiosity.
"Well, there wasn't enough beef in the piroshki. But the pancakes are good and the tea is wonderful," she said.
She said the service tended to follow a Russian stereotype. "It was a little bit slow and I thought I had to wait longer than I ought," she said.
The 600-square-foot stall is on one end of a food court where vendors also sell seafood, gourmet coffee, ice cream, barbecue, hamburgers, and Chinese, Filipino, Mexican and Italian dishes.
Piroshkis had more than its share of customers.
E.W. Michaels of Norfolk polished off four piroshkis and announced himself satisfied. "One of the nice things about this country is that we have a touch of everything," he said. "I'll never get to Russia. It's nice to know about other things, other people."
The Russian accents behind the counter piqued the curiosity of many customers. Several Russian technicians minded the piroshki-, pancake- and donut-making equipment. The Soviet investors provided the equipment; the Americans market the franchise and the equipment. The technicians are here to train American employees.
Not all the customers gave glowing reviews. Four-year-old Janae Smith of Portsmouth made a sour face after she ate a beef and rice piroshki. Her mother, Della Smith, said Janae was not big on anything new.
Asked to compare Russian fast food to American, customers at the new restaurant were divided.
Landrum and Foxhall said they stay away from American fast food, but would return to Piroshkis. But Janae was adamantly a McDonald's fan.
Crocker said he, too, would return, but "hamburgers are still Number One. When I visited friends in Germany, I had to go looking for a hamburger after three weeks. A man has to have his hamburger."
by CNB