Mari Vanna

Location: 41 E. 20th St. (near Park Ave. S.), New York, NY 10003
Cuisine: Russian
Phone: (212) 777-1955
Website: www.marivanna.ru
Prices: about $45/person (lunch)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: 3
Environment: 9

Frequency: Unique

Originally, I took the day off for Bradley's baptism, but that got moved to May 2. It still worked out though because Kelly made a surprise visit to NYC. So I was able to spend the afternoon with her. We went in reverse order and started at LA Burdick for coffee and tea because she was moving from West to East. That's probably a separate review, but I don't think I have a good enough feel for their food to do that yet. For lunch, we just moved East on 20th to Mari Vanna. As we walked in that direction, I actually walked past the place and noticed I lost Kelly. I looked back and saw that she was looking at a flower shop. I went back to see if she wanted to go in... turns out it wasn't a flower shop. That was Mari Vanna!

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I've never had Russian food before, so I went for the items that looked like specialties... mushroom soup, chicken pita and Russian crepes. The pita sounds ordinary, but the ingredients and dressing were original. The portions were large, but I still felt that $45 per person for lunch is overboard. That's more of a dinner price. I would've thought it would be reasonable of the pre-fix lunch included the dessert.

The staff was extremely friendly. They explained the dishes to us when we needed it. Our cups were always full. They gave Kelly a ton of Russian candy when she asked about it. If there's a negative, it's the slowness of service. I can understand the dishes coming out slowly, but it took them ages to bring out a dessert menu. And there was only one other customer at the time. It was no problem for us though as we were not in a rush.