The Barbarians in Moscow

It's been nearly three years since I moved to Moscow and stopped writing this blog. During our time here, the city has finally secured a place for itself on the gastronomic globe, with Varvary - The Barbarians - becoming the first ever Russian restaurant to make it into the world's Top 50 (sneaking in at number 49).



In many ways, the place is very typical of the Moscow dining scene, with over the top decor, a surly doorman and sky-high wine prices. We had booked a place on the balcony, but were told that the tasting menu would only be served indoors, as the strong wind and pukh* outside would ruin the delicate presentation.

Unusually though, Varvary takes pride in using local ingredients. This is a welcome change in a country where distant foreign imports are still the most prized, because local produce is considered to be of poor quality and people want to show that they can afford the best.

The 11 courses of the 8,500 roubles (190 pounds) "Gastronomic Show - Moscow Summer 2011" also had a distinct Russian flavour, showcasing such traditional, unglamorous ingredients as mayonnaise, dill and potato.



A good example of this was the appetiser, featuring "Real Russian Flavour" in the form of intense beetroot jelly on a sliver of black bread (remnants can be seen on the tablecloth in the photo!). On the same plate there was also sea buckthorn (a bitter, orange berry so beloved by Russians it even features as a toothpaste flavour) with curd cheese, shaped like the Japanese maki rolls that are omnipresent here; cream of broccoli with cod liver, and a herring mouse with sorrel and rocket -- a concoction of intense green, served in a beautiful egg-bottomed cup and possessing of a very sharp fishy flavour.



Next came the "oyster", the wittiest dish of the set. The flavour of the creature was separated from the traditional slippery texture and infused into a fragile green leaf, floating on a cloud of lemony foam in a silver spoon. The generously-sized oyster itself, on the other hand, was distinctly unoysterish, served baked under a parmesan crust in a very Russian sauce which the husband identified as warm mayonnaise.

Being a lady (ahem), I was then served the Spring Meadow -- a plate of green salad and fresh asparagus with steaming chunks of white truffle flavoured dry ice around a golden pond of a poached egg.

The manly alternative consisted of a shot of vodka and a plate of intense traditional beetroot soup, borsch, with a ball of dill-speckled sour cream which dramatically burst within moments of serving. Ironically, I preferred the borsch, while the husband was most taken with my salad!

There was generally a lot of soup on the menu -- gaspacho ice cream with lobster bisque was followed by langoustine soup with calmari essence, both nice enough but not spectacular and, together, overdoing the fishy liquid quotient of the meal.

A Russian-style dumpling (varenik) with succulent Kamchatka crab was a hands down favourite, with the quality ingredients shining through. Vareniki, or pelmini as their meat equivalents are known, will be probably the Russian food that I will miss the most, as they are cheap freezer staple for us on those too lazy/tired to cook evenings, though I am more used to them stuffed with non-descript meat than prime seafood.

The fish and meat main courses -- silver cod with peas and beans, and veal on the bone with pepper sauce -- were surprisingly simple, again allowing the quality ingredients to shine through. They were interspersed with potato with dill and red caviar, but alas by this stage the wine had started to kick in, and I can no longer recall how these traditional Russian staples were woven together. Restaurant blogging here seems all but non-exhistent, so google was of no help -- you'll just to have to go and check it out for yourself.

The meal finished off with a selection of honey-based dainties, followed by cute little pots of cream and jam and another potato - this one a chocolate cake-cum-sweet of Soviet childhood.

With a bottle and a half of one of the cheapest wines, the final bill rivalled our lunch in the Fat Duck. In terms of the food and the whole 'show', I would say Hesthon Blumenthal has nothing to worry about yet. But Varvary does offer the most interesting food I have tried in Moscow, while proving that Russian cooking can be turned into a cuisine.

Our time here is running out and London beckons again, so it's too late for me to start a Moscow blog, but I will do a write up of some of my favourite places here - watch this space.

Varvary, 8A, Strastnoy Boulevard, Moscow, Russia; Tel. +7(495) 229-28-00; http://www.anatolykomm.ru/Varvary



*Pukh is Russia's summer snow. In May and early June, the white fluff blows off poplar trees in Moscow's parks and boulevards, covering the streets and getting into everything from drinks to nostrils. The story goes that after the war, the powers that be wanted to make the city green as quickly as possible, and they chose the poplar as the fastest growing breed in the moderate climate. But in their hurry, they filled the streets with female trees, which produce the fluff (insert sexist joke), ensuring year round snow in the Russian capital.

The Fat Duck

It's not really the kind of place that needs a jokey headline, or much of an introduction. But it does make a rather worthy subject for my 100th post (yay!).

We planned the trip for months in advance, the booking line on speed dial for The Day Three Months before THE Day (they take bookings up to three months in advance), credit cards at the ready.

A rather unglamorous train trip from Paddington to Maidenhead, followed by a £5 taxi ride and we were standing on a narrow pavement outside an unassuming white washed, centuries old house. Inside, it was all white walls and tablecloths, sparkling glasses and dark wooden beams. The clientele was a mix of those for whom this was clearly a special occasion and those who looked they could afford to become regulars. There was a slight awe in the air, but it wasn't a stuffy, must-wear-jacket-and-tie kind of place.

We decided to go the whole hog -- aperitifs of champagne (we didn't like to ask how much, but the bill shows up about £17 a glass), the tasting menu (£115) and the accompanying wine selection (£90). I wanted to ask for tap water, but was over-ruled, so we had the £3.50 bottled stuff instead. All in all, it added up to about £250 a head. But was it worth it?...

At the end of the meal you each get an envelope of posh, strokeable paper with a Fat Duck seal, a copy of the menu concealed inside. So even though I've put off writing the review for months -- overwhelmed by the task -- I can tell you exactly what we had.


It started with nitro-green tea and lime mousse . The waitress produced a little blob, not dissimilar in appearance to hair mousse, out of an old-fashioned looking metal dispenser. She then zapped it with liquid nitrogen and told us to put the whole thing in the mouth in one go. On the tongue, it had a crunchy, frozen shell and then melted into lemony, liquidy refreshness.

A single oyster was served in its shell with passion fruit jelly and lavender , the textures matching nicely to create a slightly sweet, slithery, but not unpleasant sensation.

The pommery grain mustard ice cream was served a small, creamy coloured blob in a large white bowl, with the red cabbage gazpazcho added a little later in keeping with the theatricality of the place.

The parade of appetisers also featured jelly of quail, langoustine cream and parfait of foie gras before culminating in a three-way experience of the forest. A wooden tray of oak moss was placed on the table and "watered" with dry ice to produce clouds of foresty, mossy mist. We inhaled this while treating our taste buds to a tiny, earthy square of truffle toast and a sliver of moss jelly served in a little plastic box and eaten by letting it dissolve on your tongue. All that was accompanied by a German white, 2005 Iphofer Kronsberg Silvaner Spatlese Trocken (though I don't remember it tasting of celeriac!)

But even though the portions are tiny, this is certainly not a place you leave huyngry. Firstly, the dishes are numerous (including the appetisers, we counted 18!) and secondly throughout the meal, you can choose from a tasty bread basket selection.

Next came one of the Fat Duck's signature dishes, snail porridge. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but of all the dishes, this was the one that disappointed me most. It actually consisted of some normal-tasting porridge (though, to be fair it an unnatural shade of green), topped with normal, de-shelled snails and decorated with Joselito ham and shaved fennel and washed down with a glass of red, the 2004 Vin de Pays des Cote Catalanes, Le Soula, G. Gauby, Roussilon.

Then, to show that even molecular gastronomes aren't averse to using top-end ingredients, came the luxuriously creamy roast foie gras, served on plate decorated with streaks of cherry and chamomile sauces and tiny cubes of almond fluid gel. I was unconvinced by the jelly, though the Husband (generally a bigger fan of nursery food!) complemented it for the strong flavour. The 2003 Vinoptima Gewurtzraminder Reserve from Gisborne in New Zealand was a surprisingly nice accompaniment, considering that I don't like sweet wines.

Next another much-written-about dish. The "Sound of the sea" came accompanied by a tiny little ipod, hidden in a conch shell and programmed with swooshy sea sounds. The dish itself looked like a pebbly beach, topped with some foam and some things that may have been sea weed or sea creatures, and matched with a pungent, maritime smell. While I was not convinced by the flavours, you certainly couldn't fault it as a recreation of the sea for all the senses. It was served with Rashiku Junmai sake, which apparently has similar flavour characteristics to a Sauvignon blanc.

Salmon poached with liquorice featured a delicately flavoured (cooked sous vide?) piece of salmon, encased in sticky, sickly brown coating of (admittedly relatively mild flavoured) liquorice. It was served with two rather gorgeous spears of asparagus on streaks of vanilla mayonnaise and Manni olive oil , the latter fittingly created as part of a science project! Whether you enjoyed the dish or not I think boiled down to which side of the fence you are with regards to liquorish. The glass was topped up with 2001 Quinta da Falorca Reserva from Dao in Portugal.

Next was the Ballotine of Anjou pigeon with a very bloody black pudding, Chinese pigeon cracker, picking brine and spiced juices and a glass of gutsy 1999 Barolo from Piedmont.

The hot and iced tea was a truly amazing feat of science. The left half the cup of lemony, black, slightly sweet, slightly solidified liquid was hot. And the right half was ice-cold. You could feel the divide on your lips as it slipped down. Another one to file under "how the heck did he do that?!".

Then it was time for some rosy-coloured British nostalgia, a concept which in my mind is always illustrated by idyllic images of the British seaside and those mildly smutty seaside postcards circa 1950s. Mrs Marshall's Margeret cornet was a dinky little ice cream cone accompanied by a little leaflet. From there, we learnt that the rather pretty looking Agnes Bertha Marshall may have invented the edible ice cream cone back in 1886 and who suggested making ice cream using liquid gas more than a century ago.

The Pine-sherbet fountain was just a cute hark back to childhood, not dissimilar to those sugar fixes from the local corner shop of old.


The Mango and Douglas fir puree, Bavarois of lyche and mango, blackcurrant sorbet looked very pretty was ultimately a bit forgettable, but luckily its accompanying beverage was not. The 2003 Icewine from Pelee Island Winery, Ontario was for me the most bizarre thing on the drinks list -- they make wine in Canada?? Icewine, I discover is actually made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine, so perhaps it's ideally suited for cold climes. It was sweet, but clean and refreshing tasting, though that could have just been a psychological reaction to the word "ice" in the name.

The Carrot and orange tuile came as an odd-looking crispy lollypop, contrasted with a cube of beetroot jelly.

The Parsnip cereal came in a cute little pale green cereal box with the Fat Duck logo, and looked a bit like cornflakes. It came with parsnip milk.


The Nitro scrambled egg and bacon ice cream, pain perdu and tea jelly was truly amazing. The waitress came up with one of those shaped cardboard egg boxes, full of whole-looking egg shells into which they had cunningly put the egg and bacon ice cream mix. She then cracked the eggs into a shiny copper saucepan and zapped them with the nitrogen into ice cream. It tasted nice too - a luxurious take on breakfast in the middle of a very extravagant lunch. The accompaniment was a sweet, fruity glass of 2004 Jurancon, Uroulat, C. Hours, France.

We just about had room for the Whisky wine gums, violet tartlet before stumbling out into the daylight, about four hours after we first went in! And the verdict? Well worth the money (though probably as a once-in-a-lifetime treat).

The culinary ups and downs from Bristol to Devon

Apologies for the lack of posts, I've been on holiday. It was an odd kind of holiday, involving lots of cycling and *lots* of hills. But there were some recompenses too, in terms of beautiful autumnal scenery and of course in terms of food and real ale, both of which taste extra special after hours of slightly pointless physical exertions in the fresh air. So in case any of you are ever tempted to travel from Bristol to Totnes by bike (or by a more sensible means of transport), I shall give a brief summary of our discoveries.

Obviously, starting in Bristol, we had the cheesy chips and Bath ales at the Hope and Anchor . Other highlights included the very pretty village of Priddy where, having huffed and puffed up the mendips, we were very glad of a lunch stop at the Queen Victoria pub. Luckily though the rest of the way into Wells was mostly downhill. It's a small, pertty town, but seemingly without any of the rough edges which such places often get due to the local youth getting a bit bored in the evenings. We had a fabulous dinner at the The Old Spott . Another great meal was had in Exeter, looking out over the cathedral from No. 21 and exploring its very reasonably priced wine list. The low lights included Taunton (very relieved to find a branch of a national pizza chain), Bridgewater (where pub lunch choices were limited to a Wetherspoons and a Smith & Jones pub) and Cullompton (where the ale tasted of ash).

But perhaps the best thing was that I discovered cheesy chips weren't just a Hope and Anchor speciality -- they seemed to be available in pretty much every pub we stopped in. So obviously I had to sample them all... which might explain how I managed to put on weight despite doing 30-40 odd miles a day on the bike.

Bristol

I recently spent a blissfully chilled weekend in Bristol, and figured it merits a brief diversion from the London focus of this blog.

As Bristol is my all-time favourite city so The Hope & Anchor is my all-time favourite pub. It looks very humble from the outside, almost unwelcoming. But inside it's a pub that does good food -- and has probably done so for many years before gastro pubs were invented. The bar is always decorated with interesting floral arrangements and the room is surprisingly light and sunny given the relatively small windows. The simple wooden tables, chairs and benches have witnessed many sploshed rounds and are all the friendlier for it. Round the back there is a lovely garden, just in the right stages of overgrowth. On dark summer nights they use little lanterns. The bar is always well stocked with a good (and frequently changing) selection of real ales, and there are enough wines, ciders and more unusual bottled beers on offer to suit most tastes. There are two boards -- one for daily specials and one for old favourites, like falafael, greek salad or cheesy vegetable pancakes. But the BEST thing are their cheesy chips. Go and see (and taste) for yourselves.

38 Jacobs Wells Road Clifton Bristol BS8 1DR Tel: (0117) 929 2987

Old Fire Engine House

I know this is not in Lonodn, but it was the best meal I’ve had in a long time, so it deserves a write up. Like many places these days, they try to use local produce, but do so with much more imagination than most. Our lunch included pike, smoked eel pate, a whole pigeon and some truly fantastic home-made pear and ginger ice cream. The Scottish proprietress was very charming and accommodative, and the place had a cosy feel, as if you were eating in someone’s home. A clean, elegant home with interesting art work for sale on the walls, a small gallery upstairs and a box of books and toys to entertain the children. It’s not cheap, but definitely worth the money and the location makes it an ideal treat on a day out in Ely – it’s just across the road from the Oliver Cromwell museum and round the corner from the Cathedral. And if you need further temptation, at the front there is a small cosy bar with a roaring log fire, a photo of the original old fire engine and kegs of real ale.

The Old Fire Engine House, St Marys Street, Ely; CB7 4ER, Tel: 01353 662582, www.theoldfireenginehouse.co.uk/