Tuesday we started off by getting out of bed and heading across the street to try out “Coffee Mania”, which was billed as the most expensive coffee chain in Moscow. We didn’t want to try it because it was expensive, just because it was right across the street from our hotel. As it turned out, they were still closed at 7 am, so we left it for another day.
Instead we walked a few blocks to a small bakery/cafe chain restaurant. When we arrived they were just opening, and as we approached one of the waitresses tripped on a microwave oven that they had used to prop open the door, and she narrowly recovered before hitting the pavement. She was laughing the whole time about it. We ordered some large coffees and they were indeed very large. Really just large bowls full of coffee, with no handles. Good stuff, though, and it served to wake us up. We also had some breakfast, but the dishes we had were a little challenging to eat. The waitress was determined not to smile – she was having a rough day and she wasn’t even the one that tripped on the microwave oven. Service was slow as usual, but that is just part of getting used to European time – we have this kind of mini-culture shock every time we visit Europe.
Our morning walk was all the way to Arbat street to do some souvenir shopping. They seemed to have the right combination of cheese and quality, so we set off. The first time we went to Arbat we took the Metro, so it took a few wrong turns before we figured out how to get there on foot. The streets of Moscow are pretty wide, with as many as 6 lanes in either direction, so sometimes you had to find alternative paths to get where you wanted to go. Also they had a fleet of big tanker trucks that just drove around the city spraying water over the streets, so you had to watch where you walked.
Once we got to our destination we did a bit of shopping. I found a Putin shirt I liked, and then we found a supermarket with a deli in the basement, so we bought some goodies to try. We had a piroshki, and also what I think was called a knish(?)… a kind of fried pancake layered with mild creamy cheese, dill and cilantro. Yum!
From there we walked a ways north along the wide streets to reach Patriarch Pond, a very nice pond in the center of a square park. The was a boat house on one end with a restaurant and it looked like a nice way to spend an afternoon. Around the pond there were a lot of people lounging on park benches reading books or using their smartphones, and I saw some people doing stretching exercises down by the water. It was a peaceful part of the city, and it was nice to take a break there.
We circled back to familiar territory by cutting through an upscale restaurant district, with lots of apartment buildings interspersed with trees. It felt a lot like Paris, and I thought that it would be the only place in Moscow where I would consider living. We found our way back to Cafe Pushkin, and then from there to “theater street”, and then from there to an Irish Pub to rest our feet and cool off with a beer. The staff were all dressed like Catholic schoolgirls, which was something you don’t see every day.
In the afternoon we made our way back to St. Basil’s Cathedral to go inside and look around at the interior. The line was surprisingly short, and the interior was quite nice. Once again no photos were allowed, but we spent about half an hour looking at frescoes, climbing staircases, and trying to find the correct exit (there were actually four of them). I liked the feeling of the interior, but to me clearly the best view of St. Basil’s is from the outside.
Since we couldn’t get into the restaurant that we wanted to try yesterday, we figured we’d give it another go. This time we left early and tried to show up right at 5 pm, which is damn early by European standards. We walked right in, got a table and a menu, and we started to look through the menu and decide what to have for dinner.
I was a little surprised to find that some of the signature dishes of the restaurant weren’t on the menu, and then upon looking at the cover of the menu the name of the restaurant was completely different. Just across from us was the flag that had the correct restaurant name, but the menu was different. Kuniko and I realized that we were in the wrong place. As far as we could tell, either the restaurant that we wanted to visit had moved, or the restaurant we were in actually changed names between the afternoon and the evening. Either way, we weren’t going to have a chance to eat what we wanted to eat. Foiled again!
We decided to stay and eat anyway, and we had some really good food there. We had a beet salad with chopped greens, black bread croutons, mushrooms and blue cheese. Also we ordered some cheese dumplings and some fried chatarelle mushrooms cooked in a cream sauce. Everything was great, but we vowed to find the real Khachapuri restaurant the next day. It was becoming a challenge!
Once we went back to the hotel we tried to visit the rooftop bar, but we couldn’t find it. I think maybe it only opened by request. We tried to visit the stylish bar across the street from our hotel (The Mandarin) but they weren’t open until much later. So we ended up going to a convenience store nearby, buying some snacks that we wanted to try, and then washing them down with two big glasses of vodka in our room. Thanks to the vodka our night ended somewhat prematurely – I think we were asleep by 7 pm!
