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Couple Shares Their Armenian Culture with Clay County
Shahen Musinian and Izabelle Kardian stand in the seating area of their new restaurant, Mush Armenian Kitchen, in Green Cove Springs. (Photo Credit Clay Today Online)
By Jesse Hollett
Clay Today Online
GREEN COVE SPRINGS, FL – Shahen Musinian and Izabelle Kardian believe the best way to share the history of their motherland Armenia is through their food.
The couple, having been married 28 years, lugged their culture through three separate countries – each more different than the last – and ended up in Green Cove Springs (just south of Jacksonville), the location of their new restaurant, Mush Armenian Kitchen.
Having opened for business Tuesday at 1600 Idlewild Ave., in a storefront just under 1,000 square feet, the menu contains Mediterranean staples absent from Green Cove Springs such as kebabs and gyros and house made hummus with some lesser known menu items such as baklava and baba ghanoush.
While not all items originated in Armenia, Armenian Mediterranean cuisine developed simultaneously and what they don’t share in geography, they make up for in the similar ingredients and spices used. Musinian said the menu items come from recipes he grew up eating and cooked for his family.
“I think it’s very important to keep our traditions, educate other people and kind of get them familiarized with other cultures and what they’re all about,” Kardian said. “We’re very family oriented, we’re very close, we like to get together and we wanted to bring that and this kind of family atmosphere to this place so that people can be comfortable.”
Many of the tapestries on the walls are works done by their parents. Below them sit framed printouts detailing historic sites, ruins and churches native to Armenia that Musinian and Kardian hope customers will enjoy while they eat.
The impetus behind the tableside printouts, Musinian said, is to help people better understand Armenia, a country he said most people know little about. “If I say I’m from Britain, I’m from England, everyone knows where England is,” Musinian said. “England is no older than Armenia…Armenia has somehow been forgotten in the world, but Armenia has given the world lots and lots of actors and war heroes – it’s got a rich, rich history.”
Their menu includes Mediterranean favorites and other dishes that will be new to some guests. The restaurant held a soft opening for friends and family on Oct. 13. (Photo Credit Clay Today Online)
Aside from sharing his culture with the community, owning a restaurant has always been one of Musinian’s dreams.
The family invested roughly $65,000 of savings and loans into the restaurant, storefront and equipment. Despite the cost, Musinian appeared delighted on his progress and business endeavor as they put the finishing touches on their storefront Monday.
“This really is as they say dreams come true, it’s a dream come true,” he said. It was a long trek to get where they are now, the two admitted.
Musinian and Kardian, along with their two children, immigrated from Armenia to Israel with their parents in 1993. Kardian’s parents sold their home in Armenia to pay for plane tickets to Israel.
Musinian said after the fall of the Soviet Union in in 1991, that Armenia’s infrastructure largely fell apart. The family rationed food and struggled to find water. Kardian said she was pregnant at the time the rationing began.
“The electricity was on 45 minutes a day – but you never knew when those 45 minutes were coming,” Kardian said.
They stayed in Israel for 10 years before the United States accepted the family as immigrants through its lottery system.
Kardian said owning the restaurant still feels like a dream. “He cooks really good, and we were joking at first, ‘oh, you need a restaurant,’” she said. “The kids were little and we were just trying to” get by.
“We came here without nothing,” she said. Mush kitchen is open for breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Sunday.
This story originally appeared in Clay Today Online, and is republished with the expressed written consent of the author.
Palm Beach Post Highlights Armenian Restaurant in Boca Raton
Husband and wife, Nick and Ana Sarkisyan run and own Boca Skewers in Boca Raton, Florida since 2007. They have been planning to expand to other cities per customers’ request. (Photo Courtesy Boca Skewers)
In a recent article entitled, ‘This Boca Raton restaurant is a must-try neighborhood gem,’ Palm Beach Post entertainment reporter Julio Poletti highlights one of only a handful of Armenian-owned restaurants in the State of Florida.
“The Sarkisyans wanted a small, European-style restaurant in a great location. When they found Boca Skewers, with less than 1,000 square feet in the popular Mizner plaza, they thought it was perfect,” Poletti writes.
He goes on to share the menu of various Armenian-style Mediterranean dishes served at Boca Skewers, such as chicken kebab, lamb soltani, tabouli, falafel, and hummus, to name a few.
The article also highlights the founders of Boca Skewers, Nick and Anna Sarkisyan. Originally from Armenia, they lived in New York before settling in Boca Raton a little over a decade ago.
Nick Sarkisyan, owner, said that even when he has left his exact recipes for other family members to do the cooking, the customers will say it doesn’t taste the same. This is why Sarkisyan no longer takes days off. (Photo Courtesy Boca Skewers)
Like most Armenians chefs, Nick Sarkisyan prides himself on doing the majority of the cooking himself, Poletti found. “I can’t trust my grilling with anybody,” Sarkisyan told the Post.
You can read the entire article in the Palm Beach Post here.
Paradise International Foods in Pinellas Park
By Suren Oganessian
FLArmenians Tampa/St. Petersburg Contributor
Choices for authentic Armenian food in Pinellas county, or Florida in general, can be very limited, and delis that carry Armenian products are few and far between. One can find a few Middle Eastern delis in and around St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park which advertise Armenian food along with a host of other ethnic cuisines, but generally speaking these usually are not owned by Armenians and carry very few actual Armenian foods. This was my struggle after moving to Florida from California two and a half years ago. After months of trying out different delis in the area, settling for what I could find, I learned by word of mouth about Paradise International Foods in Largo, not too far from the St. Hagop Armenian Apostolic Church. When I visited, I was amazed to find products I’d not seen since I was in Armenia.
Nestled in the Mission Plaza shopping center on Starkey Road, just past the Bay Care Health Center, Paradise International Foods is truly a hidden gem for those who seek not only Armenian food, but food from other parts of Eastern Europe as well. The shop is family-owned, and managed by Rafael Aladjyan, a Georgian-Armenian from Tbilisi who ran a deli in New York City for 23 years before relocating to Largo, Florida. He and his wife had been in the deli business for so long that it was only natural to take it with them when they relocated.
“I like Largo,” he explained in Armenian. “It’s not quite St. Petersburg and it’s not quite Clearwater, but it’s close enough to both.”
On any given day, the shelves are stocked with hard-to-find Armenian imported goods rarely seen outside of California. Noyan products, lavash, tan drinks, Kilikia and Gyumri beers, and even Jermuk sparkling water adorn their shelves, making it the perfect destination for anyone in the area nostalgic for Armenia. There is always a nice selection of cheeses, from Bulgarian feta to Armenian string cheese, and occasionally they carry delicious Lori cheese imported straight from Armenia’s northern Lori province; the distinctive taste transports me back to the rolling green hills outside Vanadzor. Also not to be ignored is the wine selection, which along with selections from Georgia and elsewhere include sweet wines from Ijevan (Tavush region) and pomegranate wine bottled in Mgravan (Ararat region). The latter come in beautiful pomegranate-shaped bottles that are almost too pretty to throw away afterward.
The deli is locally popular not just with Armenians in the area; they receive a lot of Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish customers as well. Aladjyan prides himself in catering to the Eastern European community in Pinellas. One of their specialties is pilaf, prepared in the Central Asian style which during Soviet times became widely known throughout the USSR. Their desert selections are also very popular, with a lot of variety. It truly is an international paradise.
“We welcome anyone who wants to come to our store, no matter where they are from,” said Aladjyan.
Paradise International Foods is located at 11309 Starkey Rd,, Largo, Florida, and are open seven days a week.
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