The Traveling Fork

By far, one of the best projects I've ever done at college was "The Traveling Fork".  It was a part of my intro to TV studio production class, which was basically my professor beefing up everyone's resumes and teaching us how to work on the floor and in the control room.


In short, it was a fun class.


Basically, we had to pitch an idea to NBC4 Washington for a web series.

The class would need to produce 18 on-location episodes (one per person) on a set topic - in our case, the topic was immigrant families who own and operate restaurants in the greater DC area.

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The good thing was that everyone got to choose where they wanted to go, and essentially when they wanted to shoot/edit.  We just needed to deliver a finished video to the class by the end of the semester.  I went on three shoots, including my own.  The place I chose was a little restaurant just outside of DC, across from the Ballston metro station, called Rus Uz.

I had heard of the place from a friend in another class.  It was small, but supposedly really good.  I got to sit down and talk to the owner, Bakhtiyor, and his son, Ibrokhim.  It was an interesting interview.  We were required to ask about the owners' families reasons for coming to the US and for opening their restaurant.  As the smart girl *cough* over achiever *cough* that I am, I went to Rus Uz two weeks before my shoot to check it out.  Thus, when I started asking the interview questions, I modified them to seem a little more natural and to make my two guests feel a little more at ease.


Their story is really cool.  Ibrokhim answered all the questions for his father, who doesn't speak English. Bakhtiyor originally came over to the US to be the head chef for the Embassy of Uzbekistan.  After 10 years there, he decided to open up a catering company in the US with his sons, making authentic Uzbeki and Russian food.  When people kept asking for a place to taste their food, the decided to open a restaurant. And thus, Rus Uz was born.

Now I am totally biased on this because I lived in Russia for 4ish months last year, but I love that their menu is dual written in Russian and English.  Maybe it's because it seems familiar to me.  Maybe it's that menu items make more sense when written in Cyrillic - at the very least, you don't get the flowery ingredient pseudo prep list that some menus here in DC have (this food, lightly sprinkled with that herb, and tossed in this very specific wine to achieve that exact texture).



Just look at their food though!

 

Hungry? I am.  I keep going back there especially for the plov (one of the Uzbeki national dishes), which is superb.  I'm pretty sure I told Ibrokhim at one point that I come there so often one of these days they're gonna open up and find a tent pitched in the corner of the restaurant with me in it.