To those of you upthread who think raw fish is icky, it’s a very small barrier to get past, and it’s very much worth the effort. By the third time, I think it was, I was well past it, and it’s been my warm-weather favorite ever since. It might take just one bad experience to put you off it, though, so, if you’re going to try it, go for the good stuff. Doesn’t have to be fancy and expensive. I think reading up on etiquette beforehand is a good idea, too, because some things aren’t obvious (e.g., sushi and sashimi are to be eaten in a single bite).
The old The Egg and the Eye restaurant (above the late lamented Craft and Folk Art place) had an African omelette with peanuts. It was soooooo yummy.
Korean barbecue is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Too caloric to be a daily indulgence, but you need to try it soon, so you can have it as many times as possible before you die. Look for the word “Bulgogi” on the sign outside. That’s the place you want.
Was the shepherd’s pie made of lamb? Because if it was beef, then you haven’t had Irish yet. Look for mussels steamed in barmbrack (seaweed) with a cream sauce. Or salmon done just about any way There should be wheaten bread with plenty of texture from toasted whole wheat berries, and sausages made to the chef’s own recipe. Looking at the table you should conclude that butter is a food group. And the butter should be fermented and feel almost like a soft cheese to an American.
Corned beef is not a thing in Ireland. It became an Irish-American tradition because that’s how Irish beef was preserved for transport here.
It occurs to me that I never had Russian food before. Never even seen a Russian restaurant advertised in my city. I couldn’t even name a dish apart from vodka, borscht, caviar, and Russian dressing.
Russian blini are also good. They’re somewhere between a thin pancake and a thick crepe, and you roll them up around a filling that can be either sweet or savory. I also like borscht, but there are about ten thousand different recipes, and everyone claims the one their family makes is the real one.
And man, I’m remembering how much I miss Korean. When I lived in Bozeman, MT, the best restaurant in town was run by a Korean woman. I don’t know what she put in her bulgogi sauce, but it was so good (I’d been able to pick out soy sauce, brown sugar, and ginger, but there were a lot of other things in it, too).
I went to a Russian place in the Valley years and years ago. It was a place that was part-cabaret (nightclub?) along side the restaurant. The entertainment was fairly cheesy, but the food was good. We were a large group, and the waitstaff started bringing out platters of sharable food. It seemed a little light for dinner, so we were eating a lot of it. Turns out that was just the hors d’oeuvre course. I particularly remember dumplings made from boiled dough with a sour cherry filling . Yummy!
By the time the entrees arrived, we were starting to get too full. But I remember the shashliki.
I first tasted Korean food at the tender age of 21. It was at the Korean camp in Vietnam. The marinated beef was a revelation in flavor and the kimchee a revelation in why one should take a small taste before forking in a mouthful.
While I’ve tried almost everything else listed here (and I love Peruvian food, Pho, Korean, etc), I don’t think I’ve had Filipino or Russian food before.
There used to be a place in downtown L.A. called Gorky’s that had Russian comfort food.
I went to one in Brighton Beach, NY. The band sang Beach Boy songs, in Russian. Vodka flowed like water. Literally. Let’s just say it was a long night. I’m sure I ate dinner, but don’t recall any of the food.
I think it was probably an allergic reaction. It was a little hot but I’ve eaten much hotter. It wore off in a minute and I was able to resume eating the other things without incident.
Love their mustards and horseradish enough to want to take a tour next summer.
There’s an absolutely enormous Asian (mostly Korean, Super H Mart) grocery nearby that has fresh bulgogi made in the store and ready to cook. I’ll sometimes pick up a few packages to bring to a cook out. It cooks nearly instantly and is a real crowd pleaser. The list of ingredients goes on for miles with the ones you listed plus sesame oil and garlic not surprising but one sort of unusual thing that’s in there is apple pear puree.
I wouldn’t rush around looking for it, because it isn’t much to write home about, but in Moscow and St Petersburg I ate all manner of blinis (pancakes) - small, large, filled and not – plus a lot of marinated fish, which reminded me a lot of Scandinavian foods. Caviar is everywhere, in various grades of quality, and vodka shots with your starter are basically compulsory. I had bear in one place - the biggest slice of overstewed stringy meat I’ve ever seen on a plate. A delicacy I won’t be trying again.
I spent a few days in St Petersburg. I ate. The best thing we had was a roast chicken from a stand in the street. It was just a plain roast chicken, but i suspect the chicken grew slowly on insects and weeds, not quickly on grain, and it had a wonderful chicken flavor. The worst things to me were all the mayonnaise-draped sandwiches. Things in the general family of “chicken salad”, with unrecognizable bits floating in mayonnaise between two slices of unexceptional white bread.
What’s amusing is, this experience reads like it could apply equally to St. Petersburg, Russia, or St. Petersburg, Florida. 
I find they have the texture of a mediocre hot dog.
I actually quite like Russian food, but my family is from next door in Poland, so Central and Eastern European food is in my blood. I’m a big fan of pelmeni, which are basically the Russian version of tortellini. And I’m a sucker for borscht of any style.
That said, the three times I’ve been to Moscow, we always sought out Georgian restaurants when we wanted something interesting to eat, and not just meat and starches.
When I eat I would like to enjoy it. If I have to push through a barrier I’m not enjoying it.
I have never had Russian or Georgian food. I saw a recent episode of Michael Symon’s new show where someone was cooking khachapuri. It looked amazing.