Deciding to have our Valentine's Day celebration early, we agreed to take off one of the restaurants in our long wish list by trying out their dinner menu tonight. The honour went to Uley, a gourmet fusion cuisine restaurant located at Gasheka Ul. 7, which is a right turn down 2nd Brestkaya Ul. facing Peking Hotel on the Garden Ring Road near Mayakovskaya.
After spending a small fortune eating at poorly chosen restaurants (the Soviet-style Artissimo in front of the Tretyakov Gallery was a severe example) in recent days, we agreed to reserve special occasions for eating out and go to pricier and more upscale establishments instead.
Seeing that both of us might be busy on V-Day on Tuesday, we pushed up our romantic dinner date to tonight. Too bad I spent only the evening with my ducky.
After spending most of the day downloading free music on Limewire, I finally made a move to go out at 2 pm to respond to a request from my boss to show up at work for some documents that needed sending back to capital.
An hour into work, I got a phone call from Anna, a friend and former flame from Saratov. It was her first time in Moscow since August 2004 and my first meeting with her since September of the same year. I should've been excited but there was something unreal about our meeting up again that I can't put a finger on. Anyway, we met up for an hour at the Lafé café in the Atrium at around 4:40 pm.
My Dear seemed unusually occupied at the library and then at home, so I took a quick nap back at the flat, only getting to at 7:20. Strange, I thought, how Inessa had yet to ring me up and it was getting on quite a bit. Finally we agreed to meet at Ulitsa 1905 Goda Station and from there proceed to Uley, which she chose over Galereya Café.
The resto boasted of white tablecloths and candles. Fine dining, it all but screamed. We were seated at the far corner, away from the bar or the divans. Out of an interesting but otherwise limited menu, we chose to have as soup and main course the following: French onion soup for her, Ceasar's Salad soup for him; Fois gras for her, lamb chops for him. The soups were extraordinary in their ordinariness. With the service not having been the most prompt and the bread being cold and dry, we stared at not very promising prospects for dinner. Fortunately the main dish and the afters we ordered more than picked up the slack. The final damage: 4,700 rubles. In other words, the most expensive dinner I've had to pay for myself.
The best part of the evening, however, wasn't the food: it was the special surprise my Honey had for me (and the reason she was slightly late at our meeting place), a weekend wristwatch! Yes, my mavourneen bought me a nice casual timepiece from the Swatch shop at GUM (where we last looked at wristwatches). Now I don't have to look like a real anorak wearing the same watch 24/7.
I wouldn't recommend a second time to Uley, but still it was interesting to go there at least once. As I told Inessa, the mystery of Uley has been solved.
After spending a small fortune eating at poorly chosen restaurants (the Soviet-style Artissimo in front of the Tretyakov Gallery was a severe example) in recent days, we agreed to reserve special occasions for eating out and go to pricier and more upscale establishments instead.
Seeing that both of us might be busy on V-Day on Tuesday, we pushed up our romantic dinner date to tonight. Too bad I spent only the evening with my ducky.
After spending most of the day downloading free music on Limewire, I finally made a move to go out at 2 pm to respond to a request from my boss to show up at work for some documents that needed sending back to capital.
An hour into work, I got a phone call from Anna, a friend and former flame from Saratov. It was her first time in Moscow since August 2004 and my first meeting with her since September of the same year. I should've been excited but there was something unreal about our meeting up again that I can't put a finger on. Anyway, we met up for an hour at the Lafé café in the Atrium at around 4:40 pm.
My Dear seemed unusually occupied at the library and then at home, so I took a quick nap back at the flat, only getting to at 7:20. Strange, I thought, how Inessa had yet to ring me up and it was getting on quite a bit. Finally we agreed to meet at Ulitsa 1905 Goda Station and from there proceed to Uley, which she chose over Galereya Café.
The resto boasted of white tablecloths and candles. Fine dining, it all but screamed. We were seated at the far corner, away from the bar or the divans. Out of an interesting but otherwise limited menu, we chose to have as soup and main course the following: French onion soup for her, Ceasar's Salad soup for him; Fois gras for her, lamb chops for him. The soups were extraordinary in their ordinariness. With the service not having been the most prompt and the bread being cold and dry, we stared at not very promising prospects for dinner. Fortunately the main dish and the afters we ordered more than picked up the slack. The final damage: 4,700 rubles. In other words, the most expensive dinner I've had to pay for myself.
The best part of the evening, however, wasn't the food: it was the special surprise my Honey had for me (and the reason she was slightly late at our meeting place), a weekend wristwatch! Yes, my mavourneen bought me a nice casual timepiece from the Swatch shop at GUM (where we last looked at wristwatches). Now I don't have to look like a real anorak wearing the same watch 24/7.
I wouldn't recommend a second time to Uley, but still it was interesting to go there at least once. As I told Inessa, the mystery of Uley has been solved.
