#ponchik

Judging from multiple posts on Instagram, Ponchik (or ”Mr. Donut”), Moskvarium’s male beluga, passed away four days ago.

I don’t know if Moskvarium will make an announcement, since they don’t seem to “publicly personalise” their animals very much. My thoughts are with the trainers, which is why I’m censoring the names above.

Sam’s Armenian Bakery is slightly off the main street – which means that I unfortunately didn’t notice it for a long time. They offer custom cakes and are known for their lahmajun. I went in the late afternoon and there wasn’t much in the display cases (just some cake slices, $2 each) but they may have had more in the back. The menu mentioned boreks, nazook, gata, eclairs, perashki (piroshky), ponchik and of course, lahmajun ($2 each). They have more than baked goods – including nuts, dates, pickles, pantry items and frozen foods (made there – including manti, khingai, pelmeni, blinchik, kufta, ajarski, etc.).

Lahmajun: Really good, a thin crust with crispy, slightly puffed edges, more meat (ground beef) than usual, great flavor and better texture than most lahmajun. They were warm in the bag and the edges stayed crispy even after they cooled.

The bakery looked like it had been remodelled not that long ago and it was clean. Service was friendly. They have their own parking lot.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Father & Son is a no frills Armenian-Russian bakery in Little Armenia. Most of their customers are Armenian or Russian, from what I can tell. The selection of groceries is limited but they have yogurt, milk, cheese, honey, dates, tomato paste, candy, rice, pasta, coffee, lavash – the staples. The interior was clean.

For baked goods, they have bread, cakes, pies, napoleons, fruit tarts, cream puffs, lahmajoun, and boreks. They also had fried donuts (ponchik) and piroshky. The boreks were behind the counter. Everything was very cheap. I think the boreks were $1.20 each.

* Lahmajoun: thin flatbread with ground beef and a tomato sauce, aka Armenian pizza. Theirs was thin with crisp edges. The tomato sauce was spicy, which I haven’t encountered before but liked

* Boreks: I tried a couple. They’re little savory hand pies made with puff pastry and filled. The spinach filling was fine – on the plain side. The one with mushrooms and peppers was a little sour. I liked the lahmajoun better.  

$10 credit card minimum. They share a parking lot with other businesses in the same strip mall.

4 out of 5 stars