Sunny Isles Russian Restaurant: Syrniki at Kalinka Euro Deli

Kalinka Euro Deli, at 18090 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, is the closest thing northern Miami-Dade has to an everyday Russian restaurant: a grocery and prepared-food counter with a handful of tables at the front and more outside. Syrniki and meat-filled blini are $4.99 each, fifteen pelmeni cost $19.99, and beef stroganoff is $12.99. The doors open at 8am on weekdays and 8:30am on weekends.

Kalinka opened in 1998 as one of the first Russian grocery stores in South Florida, stocking food from Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The owners say they wanted to bring the taste of home cooking, the kind your mother made, to the Russian-speaking community here and to share the food of the former USSR with everyone else. Today the menu is printed in English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.

Miami New Times has described customers driving in from several counties away to stock up on herring, halvah, kasha, caviar, kefir, Georgian wines and bottles of Baltika beer. That mix still sets the tone. On one side shoppers fill baskets, and on the other a queue forms at the hot counter for soup and dumplings, while a few people eat at the tables by the window.

Come in the morning. Syrniki, the small farmer cheese pancakes that taste like mini cheesecakes, are $4.99, and a raisin version costs the same. Thin crepes rolled around seasoned ground veal and pan-fried until crisp are also $4.99. Zapekanka, a baked farmer cheese casserole, is $5.99 a slice. Two of these with a coffee make a full Russian breakfast for around $15, which is hard to match on Collins Avenue.

For something showier, the crepes with red caviar are $11.99, garnished with dill and lemon. There are also standard egg breakfasts, a salmon and cream cheese omelette for $12.99 and shakshuka for $12.99, but skip those. You can get eggs anywhere along the beach, and the point of coming here is the Russian side of the counter, where the blini and syrniki are made.

Pelmeni come fifteen to a portion for $19.99, with a choice of fillings that runs from classic Siberian and beef and veal to chicken, turkey, lamb or salmon. Vareniki, the larger half-moon dumplings, are also $19.99 for fifteen, filled with potato, cabbage, sour cherry, sweet or salted farmer cheese, or beef. Both are served with sour cream, and fifteen is plenty for two people.

One thing to know before ordering: New Times noted that the pelmeni and vareniki are boiled to order, so expect a wait. Order them first, then pick up a borscht while they cook. Borscht starts at $5.99 and the smoky solyanka from $4.99. If you are in a hurry, take a baked or fried pirozhok with veal at $4.99, or a cheburek at $6.99, and eat it on the way to the beach.

Beef stroganoff at $12.99 is the best-value hot plate: strips of beef in a sour cream sauce with onions and mushrooms, to be poured over mashed potatoes, buckwheat or pasta. Olivier salad, the potato salad found on every Russian holiday table, starts at $5.99, and herring under a fur coat, the layered herring and beet salad, is $14.99, sized for sharing.

Cakes are sold by the pound. Medovik, the honey layer cake with sour cream frosting, and the Napoleon, with puff pastry and vanilla custard, are each $14.99 per pound, and a poppy seed roll is $12.99 per pound. Ask for a single slice to eat at a table rather than a whole cake. Bread for the soup is fifty cents for two slices, so add it.

The kitchen also reaches beyond Russia. Georgian khinkali, five large dumplings filled with spiced pork and beef and hot broth, are $19.99; the menu advises holding each by the top knot and sipping the broth first. Buckwheat kasha cooked with butter starts at $3.99 and is the side to order with stroganoff, the way it is served in Russian homes. Together they make a hearty lunch for two.

Kalinka takes online orders for pickup or delivery through its own website, with a $15 minimum for delivery, and pickup orders are usually ready in about twenty minutes. Payment runs through secure Clover pages. The online menu switches between four languages and shows each dish under its Russian name too, which makes it easy to point at what you want at the counter.

Weekday mornings after 8am are the calmest time to eat in, because there are only a few tables and the dumplings take time at the busier lunch hour. Plan on ordering pickup if your group is larger than four. If the tables are taken, Chayhana Oasis on Sunny Isles Boulevard and Baku Cafe further south on Collins both serve borscht and Russian dumplings in full sit-down dining rooms.

The deli sits at the north end of Sunny Isles Beach, a few blocks from the Atlantic, with tall condo towers lining both sides of Collins Avenue. Take your syrniki to go and walk east to the beach. Samson Oceanfront Park, a small city park with shade and beach access, is close by and a good place to sit with a coffee.

Further south, Newport Fishing Pier stretches out over the ocean and is the classic Sunny Isles walk, with anglers along the rails and long views up and down the coast. In the late afternoon the light over the water is soft, and the walk back up the beach to Kalinka is a good way to earn a slice of medovik.

Kalinka Euro Deli, 18090 Collins Avenue, Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160. Hours: Monday to Friday 8am to 9:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 8:30am to 9:30pm. Eat in at the front tables or outside, take out, or order pickup and delivery online. Prices: syrniki $4.99, veal blini $4.99, pelmeni $19.99 for 15, borscht from $5.99, beef stroganoff $12.99, medovik $14.99 per pound. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a Sunny Isles breakfast plan.