The Russians Are Here: Ever since The European Deli closed a while back, Athens has been sorely lacking in Russian food, apart from cabbage rolls vended at the occasional holiday market. Thankfully, Irina Cochran, who owns The Local Jam (1650 S. Lumpkin St.), has a mother who is here to help. The normally breakfast-focused eatery has been expanding its offerings of late, branching out into dinner (although not this summer—it will return in the fall) and now, on Wednesdays, a special Russian menu.

If you read Julia Ioffe’s long article in The New Yorker on the rediscovery of traditional Russian cooking and are salivating, scale your expectations back a bit. This is Russian food the way we actually think of Russian food: cabbage, meat, borscht. And also, yum. The menu changes up weekly, depending on what the lady in the kitchen feels like serving up, but here are some of the stomach-warming things it might include: Russian potato salad, in which potatoes compose no more than 50 percent of the ingredients, studded with peas, carrots and quite a lot of ham; rice goulash cooked with hunks of pork (thick, comforting, ideal food for the middle of winter); borscht, served warm not cold, made with loads of beets, cabbage and beef stock, but a broth-based rather than cream-centered version, thoroughly tasty but less meaty than the rest of the offerings; cabbage rolls, in which leaves of the green stuff are wrapped firmly around meaty rice, then steamed into marvelous pablum; cheese blintzes (thin, well-executed pancakes enfolding soft, sweet cheese, topped with jam); and the cutest deviled egg, done up to look like a red-capped cartoon mushroom.

Anything involving cabbage—and most of it does—is delicious. The brassica family has much to offer, and the restaurant makes the most of it. Even the side of cabbage, which could easily have been neglected, is prepared with care and, par for the course, infused with a lovely porkiness. Russian food is not very interested in accommodating vegetarians, although you can get the rice goulash sans pork. One of the best dishes is a sort of mushroom casserole, topped with cheese and bacon, and served like a personal pot pie, in your own recyclable aluminum pan. Soft, warm, salty, flavorful, it reaches for the gut of what makes satisfying food. In many ways, the timing isn’t good. When it’s 90 degrees outside, who wants to eat hot starch and fat? Well, the A/C is cranked up in the restaurant to a degree that makes it eminently possible to consume such, and it is well worth braving the annoying parking situation in Five Points to support this valuable addition to the dining scene. The restaurant is currently open for breakfast and lunch every day until 4 p.m., encourages BYOB from Five Points Bottle, across the street, and takes credit cards.

BBQ Beat: After my experience at the first Dickey’s Barbecue Pit in the area, which opened in Watkinsville three-plus years ago, I was loath to revisit the place when a second one opened in what was Allen’s on Hawthorne, at the intersection with Tallassee/Oglethorpe. It seemed like a more aggravating version of Sonny’s, chain BBQ with little heart and no flavor. But I got a tip that this location was better, and I do trust my readers (well, some of them). I was right to do so this time. Dickey’s is still corporate through and through, with chirpy waitstaff and signage trumpeting specials everywhere you look, but there’s not much BBQ inside the loop, and its offerings are worth a trip.

The pulled pork is adequate if not exciting, but the restaurant comes out of Texas and prides itself on its beef, so that’s really what you should pick, not the sliced beef, but the brisket chopped to order, which it is, right in front of you. It’s not pulverized but chopped into chunks, and it doesn’t end up over-wet or turned into soup with sauce. Be warned about the condiments. For some reason, Dickey’s keeps its sauce in a warmer, with a ladle you have to maneuver, and that thing is hot. The sides are fine: green beans reminiscent of Mrs. Winner’s, unexciting baked beans, a baked potato casserole full of cheese and minced green onions.

The space isn’t all that different from what it was previously, a big room with a bunch of stuff on the walls and, when it’s empty, a not particularly welcoming atmosphere. Free kosher pickles (in a giant jar) and soft-serve ice cream make it a great place to take either your kids or your stereotypical pregnant lady. Dickey’s is open for lunch and dinner every day, takes credit cards and does take-out and catering. It also, pleasantly, serves beer, with happy-hour specials.

What Up?: Maba Grill downtown has closed but should be replaced soon by Yummy Pho, also serving Vietnamese food and, in fact, from some of the same folks, with a larger menu. Chipotle on Alps may be open by the time this runs, and Kabana has closed.