WHILE Russia's President Boris Yeltsin is busy in Moscow battling a communist corpse that won't lie down, four Moscow chefs are in Hong Kong to host a nine-day ''To Russia with Love'' food festival which opened last night.
Few people outside Russia know much about the nation's foods, and that's a shame because when it is good, it's very good indeed, hearty and full of flavour. After all, when was the last time you saw a skinny Russian? Sadly, during its 70-year reign the Soviet regime instigated a kind of culinary conspiracy which virtually stamped out Russian's once rich restaurant culture.
This meant that practically the only place to sample good Russian food was in a Russian home, a place few foreign visitors ever visit.
Happily, that's no longer the case, and Moscow is now awash once again with scores of new private restaurants.
But if a visit to the Russian capital isn't on the cards at the moment, senior chef Serguei Teliatnikov and his three colleagues Andrei Vakhndv, Tatiana Papina and pastry chef Valentina Borisoglebskaya, have brought a selection of some of the best Russian foods to the Kowloon Panda Hotel until October 17.
''I think Hong Kong people will especially like our pies made with meat, fish and cabbage as well as cutlets a la Kiev,'' says chef Serguei.