Travel Stop: Sanguine St. Petersburg

Look out for these 24 hour shops which are called "Canteens". They sell an assortment of food and you can pick them similar to picking Chinese Mixed Rice; the quality of the food is more than decent too. Prices are affordable here; for what I ordered in the picture plus two Russian buns I paid 380 rubles which is about 8 bucks SGD (1 SGD ~48 rubles), a portion which is equivalent to 2 meals haha.

Hearty: 5/5
Tasty: 3.5/5
Worthy: 5/5

In Russia they like to put a lot of different condiments in their buns, a bit like what we have in Four Seasons, Breadtalk, in those tuna or ham and cheese buns; here they have both savory and sweet options from meat&rice and cabbage to cherry and apple. Definitely worth trying, especially the savory buns; they work great as a light snack!

Russians really love their soups and the classic one that they have here is the Borsch, which is basically a beetroot soup. Supposedly a must try but it's not really to my liking. Try the meat or mushroom soups instead.

Featured in the picture is a bowl of Meat Soup (170 rubles) in a restaurant in Novgorod, the oldest city in Russia. Was a little too tomatoey for my taste, but there's a lot of meat in it.

Hearty: 3/5
Tasty: 3/5
Worthy: 3/5

Crispy buttered bread pot filled with creamy chicken and mushroom, sealed with a layer of cheese and sprinkled with dill. A simple yet really satisfying meal. The dish was made super fresh and was piping hot. The chicken and mushroom was mixed in a creamy sauce, which was just a little too thick to be considered as soup. Was slightly salty. The added dill helps to lift the flavour, giving the dish a tad of sharpness

Fun fact: Russians use dill in a lot of their dishes, it could almost be considered a national spice.

Hearty: 4/5
Tasty: 4/5
Worthy: 4/5

Just like the buns, the Russians are passionate about their pies as well having many different condiments from potato, ham&cheese to apple&cinnamon. Their pies taste closer to bread than pastry crust.

Stir-fried linguine with a rabbit stew with spices and mixed vegetables. Tasted really Chinese, probably from a hint of ginger. Portions here aren't that great but the concept is similar to Marché and the quality is not too bad. Food here is so much cheaper though (200 rubles is about 4 SGD)

P.S. Don't get the baked ham.

Hearty: 3/5
Tasty: 4/5
Worthy: 4/5