Mixing up my semaphors with my macushla I missed a chance to go to the Indonesian bazaar today. Last year's was brill, I remember. The Indonesians put a lot into the planning and organisation. Although I woke up not too badly at 10 or so, my weekly housekeeper came over to upend my flat again (at least it looks less battle-scarred now) and make sure I've something to wear. After that I got distracted with the Internet while eating a soft cheese rye sandwich. With the phone on silent mode from last night's cinema, I didn't hear my Inessa text and then call me. By the time I caught up with the real world, Dearie was already walking to the bazaar with Olya and Vika. I thus decided just to skip the bazaar; went instead to Shakespeare and Co., a forgotten corner on a small lane off Novokuznetskaya Ulitsa, where I picked up a 15-ruble novel by Moroccan novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun, Cette aveuglante absence de lumière, which looks promising. Granted, the paucity of Francophones in Moscow puts the prices of French language books lower than English ones. But fifteen rubles? That's like spending shillings!
My pet called me up while I was still frothing at the mouth with my bargain discovery: she said Vik was asking if we could take her home. She was completely knackered, having partied all night with her colleagues to celebrate National Oilworkers' Day or something. Interesting. Anyway, Vika looked like she walked off the set of George Romero's Land of the Living Dead so we had to drop her home at the far end of Ryazansky Prospekt before racing back to the flat to make sure my housekeeper supped and got paid.
When that was done and over with, we called Faizal to ask him about that dinner question he had. Nine o' clock, he said. We still had more than an hour of spare time to kill. So in the meantime, my Inessa and I tried to see if we could differentiate a funny bone from a wishbone. Now that's a merrythought! Hee-hee...
In Moscow, you have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to a choice of restaurants. It always takes me 15-30 minutes to narrow down options, and then five more to make a choice. Fortunately, there is a way of getting the necessary information to eliminate unworthies. Inessa today introduced me to menu.ru, which has an English version. It not only provides such necessary information as location, price range, quality and menu list, it provides photos or even videos of the interior of some restaurants. We had a choice of a couple of restaurants, including Venezia or Settebello but went for Sem Pyatnits (Seven Fridays), which is located on Vorontsovskaya Ul. I remember Seven Fridays for two things: the first, Katya Baklanova, my former assistant (née Novozhenova), accepted her fiancé's proposal for marriage there; and second, it is right next to Chornaya Koshka (Black Cat), a theme restaurant set in postwar Moscow.
On the subject of restaurants, I came across a poem by Shel Silverstein while looking up the menu site my ducky told me earlier on (oh, beats me how I get to these pages!). What surprised me was: that Silverstein, author of the best-selling children's book The Giving Tree, died of a heart attack in 1999; and that he was a famous Playboy cartoonist before achieving fame with his thought-provoking verses in 1964. Imagine that, making the jump from soft porn to kids lit in those days? Maybe the end of Camelot really did hit them hard on the other side of Atlantic. Just for mind-boggling spot-on relevance, I present you one of his poems about a menagerie running a restaurant:
An aside: while waiting for Faizal up front we saw this Porche coupé park up right in front of us. A very young and attractive woman got out and waited while his boyfriend, obviously padded in more ways than one, started to retract the car roof. She snuck a glance at us looking at the whole procedure, the first time for me with a Porche, before turning back. I don't know these people from Adam but it was a clear sign that she herself had probably just started dating the rich bloke. She had a look that she was only herself getting used to motoring around in such a car, which should be par for the course for New Russians, not so for ordinary mortals. So I figured, she was probably an ordinary Moskvichka who was chatted up in a club by this fellow last week. One can't be too sure, but it's always interesting to plot the map of human relationships.
Faizal came over straight from the bazaar (he was emcee) still wearing part of his elegant get-up, except for the scarf and the sarong. (Haha, note the slippers!) He still had a few scars from the chicken pox, but he seemed otherwise all right. But it looks like he’ll take a wee bit more to get fully back on his feet in the Moscow scene.
Tonight's waiters were human all right and the owner was most likely not a cabbage head. They were certainly and unfortunately not special enough to merit comment. Neither glum nor cheerful, they just went through their paces as if serving in an expensive Russian-French restaurant in Moscow constituted the most dreary McJob. The food was good, offering some game dishes, but was a bit pricey. Presentation, from the menu to the actual dish, was impressive though. This is not a food column, but I would like to note here that the Moskovskaya Kupola dessert was memorable! It was made up of a mousse-cheesecake mass topped by a white candy-floss dome over it that was set aflame by the waiter. This left a strong caramel scent over the whole dish.
My pet called me up while I was still frothing at the mouth with my bargain discovery: she said Vik was asking if we could take her home. She was completely knackered, having partied all night with her colleagues to celebrate National Oilworkers' Day or something. Interesting. Anyway, Vika looked like she walked off the set of George Romero's Land of the Living Dead so we had to drop her home at the far end of Ryazansky Prospekt before racing back to the flat to make sure my housekeeper supped and got paid.
When that was done and over with, we called Faizal to ask him about that dinner question he had. Nine o' clock, he said. We still had more than an hour of spare time to kill. So in the meantime, my Inessa and I tried to see if we could differentiate a funny bone from a wishbone. Now that's a merrythought! Hee-hee...
In Moscow, you have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to a choice of restaurants. It always takes me 15-30 minutes to narrow down options, and then five more to make a choice. Fortunately, there is a way of getting the necessary information to eliminate unworthies. Inessa today introduced me to menu.ru, which has an English version. It not only provides such necessary information as location, price range, quality and menu list, it provides photos or even videos of the interior of some restaurants. We had a choice of a couple of restaurants, including Venezia or Settebello but went for Sem Pyatnits (Seven Fridays), which is located on Vorontsovskaya Ul. I remember Seven Fridays for two things: the first, Katya Baklanova, my former assistant (née Novozhenova), accepted her fiancé's proposal for marriage there; and second, it is right next to Chornaya Koshka (Black Cat), a theme restaurant set in postwar Moscow.
On the subject of restaurants, I came across a poem by Shel Silverstein while looking up the menu site my ducky told me earlier on (oh, beats me how I get to these pages!). What surprised me was: that Silverstein, author of the best-selling children's book The Giving Tree, died of a heart attack in 1999; and that he was a famous Playboy cartoonist before achieving fame with his thought-provoking verses in 1964. Imagine that, making the jump from soft porn to kids lit in those days? Maybe the end of Camelot really did hit them hard on the other side of Atlantic. Just for mind-boggling spot-on relevance, I present you one of his poems about a menagerie running a restaurant:
Strange RestaurantBack in the real world, we shunted off on Balios to Seven Fridays, taking us a mere seven minutes (invoking poetic licence) to the other side of the city in Taganka. Not a mean feat, mind, considering it took us mere minutes considering the detour we had to make to get to the one-way Vorontsovskaya street. Ach, can't forget the are-you-bloody-daft look this bloke had when I poked Balios' snout at the corner of Kitaisky Kvartal (Chinese Quarter). Good there weren't any militsionir otherwise it would be as the Italians say: “Si salvi chi può”.
By Shel Silverstein
I said, "I'll take the T-bone steak."
A soft voice mooed, "Oh wow."
And I looked up and realized
The waitress was a cow.
I cried, "Mistake--forget the the steak.
I'll take the chicken then."
I heard a cluck--'twas just my luck
The busboy was a hen.
I said, "Okay no, fowl today.
I'll have the seafood dish."
Then I saw through the kitchen door
The cook--he was a fish.
I screamed, "Is there anyone workin' here
Who's an onion or a beet?
No? Your're sure? Okay then friends,
A salad's what I'll eat."
They looked at me. "Oh,no," they said,
"The owner is a cabbage head."
An aside: while waiting for Faizal up front we saw this Porche coupé park up right in front of us. A very young and attractive woman got out and waited while his boyfriend, obviously padded in more ways than one, started to retract the car roof. She snuck a glance at us looking at the whole procedure, the first time for me with a Porche, before turning back. I don't know these people from Adam but it was a clear sign that she herself had probably just started dating the rich bloke. She had a look that she was only herself getting used to motoring around in such a car, which should be par for the course for New Russians, not so for ordinary mortals. So I figured, she was probably an ordinary Moskvichka who was chatted up in a club by this fellow last week. One can't be too sure, but it's always interesting to plot the map of human relationships.
Faizal came over straight from the bazaar (he was emcee) still wearing part of his elegant get-up, except for the scarf and the sarong. (Haha, note the slippers!) He still had a few scars from the chicken pox, but he seemed otherwise all right. But it looks like he’ll take a wee bit more to get fully back on his feet in the Moscow scene.
Tonight's waiters were human all right and the owner was most likely not a cabbage head. They were certainly and unfortunately not special enough to merit comment. Neither glum nor cheerful, they just went through their paces as if serving in an expensive Russian-French restaurant in Moscow constituted the most dreary McJob. The food was good, offering some game dishes, but was a bit pricey. Presentation, from the menu to the actual dish, was impressive though. This is not a food column, but I would like to note here that the Moskovskaya Kupola dessert was memorable! It was made up of a mousse-cheesecake mass topped by a white candy-floss dome over it that was set aflame by the waiter. This left a strong caramel scent over the whole dish.
