Even though I have spent nearly two weeks of my life recently in Riga, Latvia, this is actually my first post on the country at all. Shocking, no? I was planning to do a post on Sigulda with some cute photos, but someone I was travelling with decided it was a good time to clean the sensor on my camera – gasp! Therefore, I had no battery life on the camera when we got there. I was also planning on giving some sort of walking tour of the city, but it seemed that on days when I was wanting to photograph things the weather was awful!
I have hundreds of memories from my time spent in Riga, most involving:
1) The people I met while at the ARGONAUT HOSTEL that made my stay amazing.
2) The places we all went, such as the ORANGE BAR!
But, in spite of all this other excitement in Riga, I have decided to make this post about one little thing I discovered along the way – Pelmeni XL – the backpacker/budget traveller’s dream come true! Cheap food that is quick and oh so filling!
The beauty of pelmeni XL is the fact it is weight-based. You get in line and start filling your bowl with these little dumplings – some chicken, beef, pork, lamb, veggie, and cheese. Then, you top off with sauces and sour cream. We all made the mistake the first time of getting more than we could handle because these little suckers are filling!
What makes this place even greater is the price – about 2 lats for a bowl! You can’t go wrong. And, if you’re a late-night person, pelmeni is available until 4 am at one location in Old Town. MMMmmmm. You might think the fact I ate there almost every day funny, but I’m not laughing. I loved it. Lovvved it!!!
I decided to spread the pelmeni joy to other people whenever I had the chance, and would chuckle when I saw them bringing to-go containers of pelmeni back to the hostel for dinner.
To get a better idea of what pelmeni is, take a look:
They are deeeeelicious! Take a gander at their website and make sure to stop by if ever in Riga. You won’t regret it!
Those look super YUMMY!!! I would def. be stuffing my face with those too. Plus your pic makes them look super appetizing – you should send it to their site
haha, p.s. this picture is from wikipedia… meant to say that.
I love Pelmeni, it’s so amazing. I am going to have to swing by riga for sure and that hostel looks fun. Just bought my one-way ticket to manchester last night. 30 Mar 09 I start my yearlong journey.
Awesome – let me know if you’re gonna be in Ukraine. I should be there until Nov ’09!!! I leave tomorrow and getting very nervous!
Lucky for you, the exact same food is available in Ukraine. As long as you’re a fan of pelmeny, vareniki (the same thing basically) and sour cream (smetana in Russian…need to know that word), then you’ll never go hungry.
Im sure everything will go well. You have to let me know how it goes. I should be over in the Ukraine area sometime in May-Jun timeframe. I’ll keep ya posted.
Ha ha I love pelmeni too..in fact I’m writing a review about it for the Baltic times news paper! You’d think journalists would have more expensive tastes but nooo.