Locally grown goods highlighted at Onion Route's first Buffet Day

A total of 16 pop-up buffets were open for business on Saturday for the Onion Route region's first ever Buffet Day along the western shore of Lake Peipus, where hungry customers could both enjoy food on the spot and buy locally-grown and cooked, jarred, canned, smoked or baked goods to take home with them.
Master Voronin and Madame Voronja, owners of Voronja Gallery in the lakeside Old-Believer village of Varnja, spent the day bustling about the gallery's buffet on Saturday. Master Voronin admitted that their city-slicker menu wasn't the most popular with the country folk, reported ETV's nightly news broadcast "Aktuaalne kaamera."
"We are offering a Voronini onion pirukas, but as we ourselves are from the city and have advertised a city-slicker buffet, this isn't a totally traditional local-style onion pastry," explained gallery owner Raul Oreškin. "It is an open pastry, and there are a lot of city flavors in it. A number of local country men who have visited have commented that it doesn't taste quite like how they are made here. But that wasn't our goal."
Nevertheless, the line at the city-slicker buffet was long. The line seen at Varnja village's southernmost buffet Lõpp-peatus, or "Last Stop," where the menu was largely appeared to be neverending as well.
"Last Stop" hostess Herling Jürimäe commented that they had had a lot of visitors, and from all over Estonia, and that most popular among their guests seemed to be smoked fish, including locally-caught vobla, a house specialty.
According to the Onion Route's homepage, Varnja boasted four different buffets, while Alaktsivi had three, Kolkja had two, and Välgi, Koosa, Torila, Rupsi, Nina and Kasepää each had one buffet.
Preparations and organization of the Onion Route region's first Buffet Day was supported in part from the Ministry of Finance's Local Initiative Program funds.
Editor: Editor: Aili Vahtla