Dacha: Cabbage Rolls, Pelmeni, & Eastern European Home Comfort Cuisine
Maybe it’s because I am constantly mistaken for Russian (and Bulgarian), or maybe it’s because I grew up eating a steady diet of Eastern European-inspired stews and other comfort foods, but this is exactly the type of fare that I revert to when I want to feel at home. It may also be because I drank about 5 liters of vodka with a Ukrainian babushka and Russian busboy on my 29th birthday at a restaurant in Vienna.
Cue Dacha, an Eastern European restaurant and bar, offering up a variety of traditional Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian, Polish, and Romanian cuisines, such as mouthwatering pork-stuffed cabbage rolls (golubtsi), cheesy buttery khachapuri (Georgian cheese bread), spicy smoked kielbasa, and hearty half-moon shaped vareniki (dumplings). And, I can’t forget the Baltic herring with homemade bread to start things off.
Dacha also boasts an impressive Polish-inspired homemade-infused vodka list (honey and pepper, horseradish and honey, and countless other flavors), signature spicy and salty ‘Pickletini’, Georgian wine (the birthplace of wine), and is one of the only spots to get my beloved Pilsner Urquell on draft in Hong Kong.
Dacha quickly became one of my favorite restaurants after I returned to Hong Kong, here’s why.
The Deets & Decor: Stepping Back in Time
Website, Address, & Details: https://dacha.com.hk
Location: G/F, Wing On Building, 38-40 Hollywood Rd, Central
Located on Hollywood Road, just under the iconic Shelley Street escalators (almost), stepping into Dacha is like stepping back in time. While I’ve never been to any of the former countries of the Soviet Union, I have watched a lot of episodes of ‘The Americans’ on FX (yes, this is meant to be a ridiculous statement), and it feels eerily similar to the decor when Keri Russel and Matthew Rhys have flashbacks to growing up there.
The walls, adorned with floral wallpaper, family portraits, antique mirrors, and vintage kitchenware. The music, broadcasting soothing and haunting Russian classics. A jukebox-looking fridge, packed to the brim with take-home pelmeni (dumplings made with unleavened dough). The decor sets the tone of the meal – home comfort.
You’ll find that I use this term a lot in this post but honestly, there isn’t a more accurate description out there. This is the closest you will get to stepping into someone’s dining room to share a meal in Hong Kong.
The Food: Baltic Herring, Manti, & Cabbage Rolls Galore
While I’ve done a much better job of taking pictures over the last year, I still was unable to capture all of my favorite dishes here at Dacha (ex. The chicken kiev and beef stroganoff). However, I have compiled what I consider still to be a comprehensive arsenal of pictures that speak volumes more than anything I could write here (although, I will try). Let’s have a look.
Served with raw onions, peppercorn, and dill, Dacha’s Baltic herring is a soft, salty explosion of flavor to kick the meal off. Pair this with their homemade bread (which I want to say is black rye bread) and lard, and you have a buttery, salty open-faced sandwich that is one of a kind in this beleaguered city.
While the Baltic herring on rye bread is actually quite light, I always like to ramp things up a bit and indulge in a cheese overload – pictured below is what I would refer to as a Georgian calzone (I hope that isn’t a faux pas), aka ‘khachapuri’.
This really requires no description as if you love cheese and bread, you already know. Made with a sulguni cheese, a slightly sour and indulgently salty cheese, bryndza cheese, a tangy, slightly acrid (only because it is similar to parmesan) sheep’s cheese, an egg yolk (added in the last few minutes of cooking), and brushed with melted butter, this cheese boat is an edible pillow of everything that is right in the world.
Writing this in the middle of an exceptionally cold Hong Kong winter, I think I could put back at least two of these while using a third to rest my head on before finishing it off after I wake up.
From the monstrous lamb-filled manti (Asian-inspired and prepared via a steam cooker) to the bite-sized pork and dill pelmeni (small dumplings made with unleavened dough) and the potato-ey, sweet, caramelized onions perched atop a bed of pierogis/vareniki, you’ll quickly become acquainted with the various ways to make and serve dumplings.
Dumplings are by far one of my favorite foods out there and I have a belly like Winnie the Pooh, so I do consider myself somewhat of a dumpling expert.
My favorite of Dacha’s various Eastern European and Asian-inspired dumplings are either their potato vareniki, potato-stuffed half-moon dough beds of perfection, topped with caramelized onions and bacon bits, or their braised sauerkraut and polish sausage pierogies, slightly sweet, crunchy (from the snap of the kielbasa skin), cabbage-filled doughy concoction.
Now, onto the mains. This may be my single most ordered dish at Dacha and is the dish that takes me back to childhood, the sweet and sour cabbage rolls (made with pork). The tang of the tomato sauce, the sweetness of the tender, cooked cabbage, the savory minced pork – this is the dish that transports you to your grandmother’s dining room.
Do note that pictured to the right of the cabbage roll is the national dish of Belarus, the rich, crispy, oniony, fried draniki (potato pancake). I can eat these like Communion wafers, so much so that I have to be careful to not spoil the other dishes of my meal.
For the big ballers out there who are looking for their caviar fix, Dacha does in fact serve premium sturgeon caviar. While I enjoy caviar and won’t ever turn it down, it is not quite something that I budget for. The American in me still prioritizes feeling uncomfortably full over delicacies.
Finally, I am embarrassed to admit that I have not tried one of Dacha’s several desserts as I have usually just consumed an excessive amount of meat, dough, and cheese (and am very bad at planning ahead for the full scope of the meal). I will say that one of my friends ordered the ‘Medovik’ (twelve-layer honey cake with sour cream) and was in a state of Nirvana.
You can find a complete list of Dacha’s desserts here.
Homemade Infused Vodkas & Pilsner Urquell Drafts
I have a love-hate relationship with vodka. I think it’s because I’m American and I grew up sneaking $10 Popov bottles (the plastic ones) around town and mixing them with Kool-Aid. So, I’ve really been attempting to make a concentrated effort to push past this mental barrier and order “good vodka” any chance I get (this does not mean a vodka soda at Cassio at 3 AM).
Each time I dine in at Dacha (I am guilty of ordering delivery at least twice per month), I make sure to try one of their homemade infused vodkas. I’ve now tried all on the menu and can confidently declare that the horseradish and honey flavor has become my go-to vodka here.
The spiciness and bite from the horseradish give me that same feeling after I eat a huge chunk of wasabi and force me to hold back a violent sneeze. But that sneeze is then gently soothed and comforted by the warm, sweet note of honey, cleansing my palate and lining me up for shot number two.
Other than Suntory Premiums, I’m not sure there is another pilsner in the world that tastes better on draft than a Pilsner Urquell. It’s crisp and refreshing, possesses the requisite hoppy bitterness, and is easily drinkable. Plus, the foam head allows me to do Santa impressions when I childishly get it all over my upper lip and chin. So, when I learned that Dacha had Pilsner Urquell on tap, I knew I was in for a long-lasting relationship with them.
The Pilsner Urquell glass is distinct. Short, compact, and grenade-like, revealing the golden clarity of this heavenly liquid bread. According to Pilsner Urquell’s website, the glass specifically concentrates the aroma of the beer at the top, much like a wine glass. This is the beer that makes us American beer drinkers realize just how flavorless most pilsners and lagers are in the United States.
Big Body Pale Ale Tip: I first fell in love with Pilsner Urquell beers when I spent considerable time in Bratislava. I would post up at Urban House (one of my favorite cafes ever), snag an avocado toast, and throw back a few late-morning brews to start off a Saturday or Sunday.
Dacha Wish Ya Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me
Yes, that is me making a Pussycat Dolls reference and I’m not ashamed. Dacha is a rarity in Hong Kong’s trendy, fast-paced, fusion-focused gastronomic scene which is a surprisingly barren wasteland when it comes to Eastern European cooking (other than Ivan the Kozak).
For me, it boasts high-quality versions of traditional comfort foods that I loved growing up and grew to love even more during my tenure in Europe. Simple concepts with explosive flavor. Dacha gets back to the basics – with emphasis.
Get yourself some pelmeni, throw back a few honey and pepper shots, hug your grandmother, and let yourself be transported back in time. You’re home.
If you have any questions about Dacha or have any favorite Eastern European restaurants in Hong Kong that you recommend, do let me know! I’d love to hear from you in the comments or via email.
Be grand and eat and drink well,
Big Body
Big Body is a voracious lov…eater, a cowardly fighter, and a self-proclaimed curry goat BBQ-eating champion (don’t forget the donkey milk) who likes Stoicism, baseball, and writing in the third person. Having worked for himself for the last 7 years, he isn’t particularly successful but he does still drink ice-cold Sapporo draft beers with the best of them and knows his way around a Dai Pai Dong or two. He is based in Hong Kong but you can still find him in Saigon, Osaka, and Vienna for extended periods.