Heppy Bears-Day TO YOU!: Lil Places I Love

There's something to be said for casting off all propriety and decorum, throwing all the little rules we make for ourselves out the window. It's easy to get so caught up in life that you forget where you are. And suddenly, you snap out of it and realize you're celebrating someone's 80th birthday at a tawdry Russian nightclub in the heart of Brighton Beach, eating caviar-filled blini and gloriously fried potatoes while you watch scantily-clad Slavic Amazons writhe around to heavily-accented pop song karaoke. This is Tatiana.



Tucked away on the corner of the Brighton Beach boardwalk closest to the border with Manhattan Beach, Tatiana looks like it could be just another cheap and delicious attempt at recreating Odessa in New York, substituting the Atlantic for the Black Sea. But Tatiana is so much more. Every one of these little bistros have their specialties. Volga's where you go for pelmeni, Primorski's where you go for Georgian grub and Tatiana's where you go for weird.

This is what Tatiana says about itself, on its Web site: "Ladies hang on to your husbands and guys don't forget to shave, because there are plenty of people to impress. You do not need a red carpet invitation to see city's top fashion worn in style and such sex appeal that is even desired by many celebrities."

I rarely get the chance now to go to the nightclub part of the restaurant (maybe this summer?), but my first experience was a memorable one. It was family matriarch Khana's 80th birthday, and I was just finishing middle school. The party didn't start until 10 or so, and we entered the grand banquet hall to see table after table stocked high with Russian food. But at around midnight, the real fun began. Six or seven Russian women came out in outfits ... that were just so Bob Mackie-bizarre. As they danced to late 90's techno (Brighton Beach is always a few years behind) like "Blue (Da Ba Dee)", I became fantastically aware that this was why I loved New York. You just won't find anything this flat-out strange in Peoria or Harrisburg, even Philly or Boston, I'd contend.

I still go to Tatiana from time to time (sometimes on momentous occasions, like my last meal pre-Israel,) but it's clear nothing will ever top the memory of a bevy of Muscovite dancers serenading my 80-year-old great-aunt with a loud and raucous "Heppy Bears-Day TO YOU." That experience lives alone.

Tatiana Restaurant and Nightclub
3152 Brighton 6th St.
Brooklyn