Issue #28/83, February 10 - 17, 2000 
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| $ = up to $15.00 | $$ = $15.00 to $30.00 | $$$ = $30.00 to $50.00 | $$$$ = $50.00 to ? |
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011
$$$
Cheers:The Dalmatian Coast may still be a bit unsafe, so head to this Yugoslav restaurant for a taste! Good place for large parties or small dates. Fish dishes rule. Dark, candle-lit interior gives you that air of Serbian intrigue.
Jeers:That Canadian bitch could indict you for war crimes if you eat here. War-mongering "Third Way" Brits and "I used to be a liberal" Americans may want to avoid coming here if they want to maintain their image of tough-love humanitarians.
M:Kievskaya
Phone: 143-9400/9308 ext.056
Address: Ul. Mosfilmovskaya 1
Hours: 11.00 - 23.00
Amalteya
$$
Cheers:Whaddaya know, the food here has gotten a whole lot better-how can-do is that? Even the baklava ain't so ludicrously sweet anymore. Friendly service; delicious Turkish coffee made to your specs. Scrumptious stuffed breads, kebabs, and tangy vegetable appetizers and salads. Tastefully decadent interior featuring a miniature fountain. Moscow's finest Turkish restaurant-now more than ever.
Jeers:If you get the raki they'll try to force you to drink it with water, but don't let 'em-it tastes better straight up! Occasional scary-looking customers might frighten hardened middlebrows.
M:Serpukhovskaya
Phone:236-0256
Address:Ctremyanny pereulok 28, korp. 1
Hours:11:00 - 24.00
Angelico's
$$$
Cheers: Take your tastebuds on a cruise around the Mediterranean, but without the customs hassles; delicious soups and salads, and easily Moscow's best desserts, including a light 'n rich tiramisu with mangoes and strawberries.
Jeers: Over-priced wine list, overattentive staff when the place is less-than-full.
M: Tsvetnoi Bulvar
Phone: 299-3696
Address: Bolshoi Karetny Pereulok 6
Hours: 11:30 - 2:00
Baskerville
$$
Cheers:This new pool hall offers the best steak value in Moscow! For about twelve bucks, you get a tasty, quality filet or pepper steak; Caeser salad done properly; delicious five dollar desserts. Cozy, comfortable atmosphere; boat hotel docked next door offers cheap place to take your date.
Jeers:Way far out; a bit too serious for some eXholes.
M: Rechnoi Vokzal
Phone:234-1790
Address: Leningradskoye Shosse 55 (inside Rechnoi Port Park)
Hours: 12.00 - 5.00 daily
Brand
$$ (club) / $$$$ (restaurant)
Cheers:High-class Frenchy stuff in the intimate restaurant downstairs; affordable and tasty Russky bar-food in the club upstairs. Our own Lionel Tannenbaum simply loved the duck. Fresh desserts can be custom-made-to-order for those with time to kill. Excellent coffee. Kick-ass wine list and cognac selection for all you fancy lad eXholes.
Jeers:Then again nobody likes a fancy lad. French onion soup was merely OK. The wines tend to be overpriced. Plays way too much middle period George Michael. Waiters not as gay as they're trying to appear. See Lionel Tannenbaum's debauched review.
M: Smolenskaya
Phone:241-5089/1537
Address: Smolenskaya pl. 1 (across from MID)
Hours: 12:00 - 24:00 (club until 5:00)
Budvar
$$$
Cheers:Unbelievably huge portions, can-do management and service style give this an authentic Kohl-era feel. Czech beer on tap. Try the crackled duck.
Jeers: Heavy food could clog your arteries, esp the pork ribs.
M:Taganskaya
Phone:915-1598
Address: 33 Kotelnicheskaya nab.
Hours: 12.00 - 23.00
Cabana
$$$
Cheers: Chris, Moscow's most killer chef, has just introduced his springtime menu, and Moscow is celebrating. As always, the portions are huge, the flavors full, and now, the prices on a few dishes are even Val-U friendly. First, the Jumbo Shrimp in an orange curry sauce is surely the tastiest appetizer in Moscow--be sure to ask for the sesame version. Great cheap-O tempura onions, luscious beef sate. For dinner, un-be-lievable massive Red Snapper ($16) in vegetable stew, and a massive cut of filet mignon ($24) which, when rare, is best. Also love the salmon, and cheap-O's will go ga-ga over the thyme grilled chicken ($9). Do we really deserve this? Massive Penne Con Vodka never disappoints. Some kick-ass salads and one of the best onion soups around, plus desserts--esp the caramel bread pudding and the espresso chocolate torte--that will put pounds on you and make you friggin' love it. Great place for dates and everything else. Rules, rules, rules.
Jeers: Chris, the Olympian master of kitchen wizardry, is packin' his bags and headin' home. Waaaaaa! We haven't stopped crying since. It was one thing when our readers left... but this is truly devastating.The salad dressing on the Caesar salad--a bit too schmegma-ish.
M:Tretyakovskaya
Phone:239-3045/6
Address:Raushskaya Nab. 4
Hours:Daily from 12.00-6.00
Chevignon Cafe-Restaurant
$$$
Cheers:Steaks rated among the best in town by some discerning diners; delicious au gratin potatoes; cool, quiet, pleasant underground atmosphere; price fixe menus allow for affordable meal with apertifs and wine; awesome toilets you'll be proud to use over and over; defiantly un-American atmosphere means you won't run into Bruce Bean here.
Jeers: Our own Vlad Kousraev got ripped off here when he tried to return a new pair of Levi's jeans at their jeans store, and they refused to take them back. Our own Lionel Tannenbaum was highly disappointed by the stringy steak he received on a recent visit. You have to walk through an overpriced middle-class clothing store to get here, which might upset your status-conscious date. Not exactly cheap. Absence of windows really gets to you, if you're a claustrophobic with recurring fire nightmares.
M: Kuznetsky Most, Ploschad Revolutsii
Phone: 733-92-03, 04
Address:14 Stolezhnikov Pereulok
Hours: 24 hours
El Dorado
$$$
Cheers: Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov was videotaped boning two teenaged whores in an apartment right under the great El Dorado sign! Restaurant business has been picking up slowly as New Russians learn to steal from scratch. YThis is sort of the Spago's for flat-heads, the place where famous and pseudo-famous Russians go to be seen. There's a smaller cafe that's always packed with models, molls and coked-up contract killers. The restaurant's membership-only, featuring heads so flat and babes so babed that you actually feel like an untermensch.
Jeers:Ridiculous light show makes you think you're at a bunk Laserium playing Pugacheva instead of Floyd. Also, the cheesy waterfall with the tiled butterflies stopped working. Is your head flat? No? Then poka, Mr. Foreigner!
M: Borovitskaya
Phone: 238-9154
Address: Bolshaya Polyanka Ul. 1/3
Hours: 11:30 - 23:30
El Rincon Espanol
$$$
Cheers:The Bolshaya Dmitrovka location was swallowed up by the secret metro cave-in, but the original inside the Hotel Moskva is still alive and wellÑnow with a brand-new Venezuelan manager who's looking to shake things up a bit. We like the fabada asturiana, a hearty bean soup with chorizo; they also do the garlic thing well. Tempty seafood entrees. $10 business lunch (appetizer, entree, and juice) is definitely worth a visit. Sometimes used as a hideout for local whores trying to avoid blowjob-seeking pigs. Try the $69 paella special on Valentine's Day.
Jeers:Dark paneling makes the interior kind of a downer; Russian waiters and barmen lack the spirit of their Latin American counterparts. Shares an entrance with the Moskva's creepy casino and a sovok billiard room.
M: Okhotny Ryad
Phone: 292-6267/2893
Address: Okhotny Ryad 2 (entrance from Manezh Square)
Hours: 12.00 - 24.00
The Embassy Club
$$ - $$$$
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Jeers:Gazpacho could use a little work; chef no longer Nigerian. They got rid of the cheese cake and black bean soup. See Lionel Tannenbaum's groundbreaking review.
M: Okhotny Ryad/Pushkinskaya
Phone: 229-7185/6563
Address: 8/10 Bryusov pereulok
Hours: 17:00 - ???
Grand Imperial
$$$$
Cheers:Rated the top restaurant by some kind of Russian organization; easily the top-priced, including 30 dollar soups; outside, full of surly bodyguards and pasty drivers in massive Mercs. A must.
Jeers:They don't have a children's menu. Even the smiles aren't free.
M: Kropotkinskaya
Phone: 291-6063
Address: Gagarinsky Per. 9/5
Hours: 11.30 - 01.00
Kafka
$$$
Cheers:Deliciously decked-out supper club on the fledgling elite restaurant row on Ulitsa 1905,. really packs in what's left of the bored and beautiful people. Beautifully presented sushi and Asian-influenced dishes a feast for the eyes. Good jazz and a lounge singer sideshow who looks just like a youngTom Jones. Frequent contract hits of flatheads on their way home from here makes it a good place for up-close death pooling. Gives us an excuse to say "Kafkaesque."
Jeers:Food not quite as tasty as it looks, nor does it fit the high price (especially the sushi). The bored and beautiful people don't seem quite as beautiful as they used to be.
See Lionel's review.
M: Ulitsa 1905 goda
Phone: 773-2494
Address: Ulitsa 1905 goda (across from the Mezh. Hotel)
Hours: 12.00 - 5.00
Kukly
$$$
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Jeers:Another lame duck entree, with a sauce that's way too orangy; pastas not worth the price. Vegetable tempura was just too weird. Depressing flathead/moll clientele.
M: Tsvetnoi Bulvar
Phone: 299-1656
Address: Sadovo-Samotechnaya 3 (in the Kukly Theater)
Hours: 19.00 - 06.00 daily
Le Club
$$$
Cheers: Folks, if you haven't tried the spicy orange beef ($15) or Moscow's top spring rolls, then you ain't nutin': these are rockin'-good dishes. Expanded Asian and Mexican-tinged menu means Le Club is better than ever. $7 wraps definitely belong on your must-eat list. Giant solid brass bar the coolest around; dining area features monster booths, soothing lighting, nice acoustics. Always reliable house wine.
Jeers:Service remains a little spotty. Management will still not allow you to carve obscene pictures in the brick walls. Jazz music evenings mean fat asses and leather pants. A trip to the john may be too much for your real fall-down drunk type.
M:Taganskaya
Phone:915-1042
Address:20 Radichevskaya (Across from Taganskaya metro station on Radichevskaya-you'll see a sign on a brick building)
Hours:Sun-Thu: 12.00 - 02.00; Fri, Sat: 12.00 - 05.00
Le Gastronome
$$$$
Cheers: Marble Stalin/aristocrat interior, superior menu and wine list, attentive service. Moscow's top burgers, perfect soups, flaky crab cakes. Although our General Counsel dissed Le Gas, others insist it still offers top quality dining.
Jeers:eXile alert! Ken bailed for good this time, folks, which means bad news for Le Gasseurs. Moe Snideman, our ever-forgiving general counsel, gave them two legal pads down, saying that service and quality of food have slipped markedly.
M:Barrikadnaya
Phone:255-4433
Address:Kudrinskaya Ploshchad 1
Hours:12.00 - 23.00
Mandarin
$$
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Jeers:Sterile layout; shite music. I suppose some folks might count the copious whores as a jeer.
Read Lionel's Review.
M:Pushkinskaya
Phone:200-1506
Address:Tverskaya 12/3
Hours:12.00 - 6.00
Mehana Bansko
$
Cheers: They've just installed air-conditioning here, making this a worthwhile scorching-day choice. Moscow's finest and perhaps only Bulgarian restaurant offers palate-pleasing tomato-n-feta heavy cuisine at eXhole friendly prices. Quaintly decorated interior makes you feel like you're experiencing real Balkan culture, even if you're not. Lots of entrail-y options for the kid in you. Real live Bulgarian wine turns your teeth black, but will get you drunk.Every day live music from 6.00pm.
Jeers:Also claims to have Macedonian food. We're not sure why that's a jeer--it just is. See Lionel's Review.
M: Smolenskaya
Phone: 244-7381; 241-3132
Address: Smolenskaya 9/1
Hours: 12.00 - 24.00
Pivnushka
$$
Cheers:Intricately detailed woodsy bi-level beer hall with an Austrian chef and a Bavarian menu that's surprisingly inventive, not to mention surprisingly affordable. Caesar salad and lentil soup are both solid. Fried camembert with currant jam is unlike anything in town. Super beer selection with delicious Paulaner coming soon; 2-for-1 happy hours daily from noon to 1 and 5 to 6 p.m.
Jeers:You never know when some drunken German is going to break into ear-splitting song.
M:Leninsky Prospekt
Phone:952-5567
Address:Leninsky prospekt 28
Hours:12.00 - 6.00
The Place
$$
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Jeers:Definitely a proponent of the "better to look good than to taste good" school of restaurant management. Recent follow-up confirmed this. Disappointing salads, bland humus, dry Thai chicken.
M:Paveletskaya
Phone:725-4070
Address:Kosmodamianskaya naberezhnaya, 52/5 (Riverside Towers, building 5)
Hours:11.30 - 23.00
Praga AST Restaurant
$$$
Cheers:This is Our Mayor's second-favorite restaurant; outside, features a giant tiger on the enterance and Frankenstein-like neon spire; prices not as astronomically frightening as you'd think; dyevs find it sophisticated; provincial Russians will fondle you if you take them there; foreigners will stand up and cheer the cheesy schlock factor, including heavy doses of Tom Jones, Elvis, and Khaled, whoever that is; a true New Moscow nightspot that rivals Chuck Norris Beverly Hills for "you have to see it," especially on International night (belly dancers, prizes, lottery)..
Jeers:We think a mass Yeltsin-like sacking of the wait staff might help-help was surly and easily-distracted; heavy security downstairs rivals Ben-Gurion Airport; it's on the 4th floor, so you may get lost and wind up on the wrong floor, which could mean problems.
M: Arbatskaya
Phone: 290-6171
Address: At the end of the Arbat
Hours:Lunch: 12.00-15.00; Dinner: 18.00-04.00
Scandinavia
$$$$
Cheers:Perhaps your best all-around dining option in Moscow--if you've got the dough. Rare tuna steak ($28) and salmon filets ($26) that would rate high in any Western capital. Try the Indochine ($10), a creamy blue-ribbon Thai-flavored seafood soup. Summer outdoor seating and cheap-O menu appeal to eXholes. Swedish maidens with those funny accents sometimes greet you,; nearly every dish is delicious, especially the fishy ones. All products flown in from Schveeden.
Jeers:Interior could use a little pepping up; so could the Swedish clientele, who make us restless; lousy salmon sandwich.
M: Pushkinskaya
Phone: 200-4986
Address: Palashevsky Mal. Pereulok 7
Hours:12.00 - 24.00
Shakespeare
$$
Cheers:Located downstairs from a theatrical union, this place runs with the stagey theme, but it somehow works-due probably in part to the cozy, small-town college-y feel of the interior. Rich and creamy food offerings are mongrelish Anglo-Russian halfbreeds that also turn out surprisingly well. Try the Oxford mushrooms, hearty bean soup, or trout w/nutmeg and almond sauce. Super-budget business lunch for about $7 seems like a pretty good thing. Yaroslavl's Yarpivo on tap and some pretty groovy quasi-exotic desserts.
Jeers:Shakespeare's salad (sort of a club sandwich turned into a salad with a "light" lemon vinaigrette) a disappointment; waitstaff so stunningly inept it's almost funny. Aw hell, it is funny!
M:Chekhovskaya/Pushkinskaya
Address:Strastnoi Bulvar 10
Hours:11.00 - 24.00
Teatro Mediterraneo
$$$
Cheers: All-new menu had Lionel and his personal legal adviser drooling like mental patients. Pastas have gotten a serious new lease on life; gazpacho that's fit for a king; seafood so fresh it talks to you about the weather. Somehow, the revamped tomato, basil, and mozzarella (the cheese is marinated now, among other things) salad is... even more delicious than before. One-of-a-kind cold cherry soup dessert deserves some kind of medal. Tastefully decadent pseudo-Saharan decor and ultra-high ceilings make for one of the most elegant all-around dining experiences around. Prices seem a little lower, too.
Jeers:From what we've seen, practically no misses to speak of. That is, unless for some reason you're annoyed by cheesy vocal/synthesizer duos who continually crank up the volume contary to the manager's explicit orders.
M: Teatralnaya
Phone: 927-6069
Address: Teatralny pr-d 1/4, Hotel Metropol
Hours:11.00 - 02.00
Uncle Guilly's
$$ to $$$$
Cheers:The best Filet Mignon in Moscow ($42). Great salmon dinner. Also the single-best budget deal: a massive chicken and cheese sandwich for ten bucks, or a chicken schnitzel for the same price. Attentive service, casual atmosphere in a wine cellar setting. Sometimes has local folk music which helps to keep conversations private.
Jeers:Can't really find fault with this place.
M: Pushkinskaya
Phone: 229-2050
Address: Stoleshnikov Per. 6, Str. 1
Hours:12.00 - 24.00
U Yara
$$
Cheers:Cozy wine bar with affordable-and tasty-food ($10 entrees) and wine ($2.50/glass for house wine) will please frogs and their sympathizers; connecting store has a decent selection of wines from around the world, which can be enjoyed in the bar for a small corkage fee (which, it is claimed, may have been phased out). Fuzzy-haired French chef Patrick Pages will soon be introducing his special menu-it looks great, but we weren't able to try it yet.
Jeers:Sweater-wrapped-around-neck factor is extremely high; nervous service may set off epileptics. They don't even have California wine-at any price-any more. Euro(fag)-snobs!
M: Dinamo
Phone: 945-9074
Address: Leningradsky pr. 33
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