[A-List] On the other hand, if you're a wealthy American, Moscow is just great, the restaurants are cool, the entertainments bizarre, the women are

["Mark Aidan Jones" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Time magazine
October 28, 2002
Moscow Eats
Watch a cockfight over dinner, or try Italian food inside a giant cheese
By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE/MOSCOW

Wander at night through the center of Moscow, past the casinos with their
grand prizes -- a sports car, a small helicopter -- hoisted up on platforms,
past the young girl offering to rent out her horse for a late-evening ride,
and you realize that the Russian capital is like nowhere else. It's a
showplace for excess but also a village: many grim Stalin-era buildings
encircle cozy courtyards where children play on swings and pensioners walk
their dogs. One of the delights of today's Moscow is that its food spans the
same wild spectrum: from world class to high kitsch to the products of its
wonderful farmers' markets.

For many business travelers, the rich fragrances, hues and flavors on
Moscow's tables come as a shock. But none of this is new; it is more a
return
to the Russia that disappeared with the 1917 Revolution. Food lovers here
have always looked toward Western Europe as well as their own specialties.
Assaying some of Russia's finest restaurants in 1914, the Baedeker guide
noted disapprovingly that most were "in the hands of French or German
proprietors" and pricey. Such restaurants are still pricey: about $200 a
head
without wine for excellent Japanese cuisine, only slightly less for French
or
Italian.

One of the finest dining rooms in Moscow is at Kumir, where the decor is
Manila Hyatt 1984 but the traditional French fare is superb. A meal for two
--
succulent pigeon de Sologne, excellent fish and a youngish
Chateauneuf-du-Pape -- costs north of $300. East-West fusion is represented
by
the fashionable Uley, which serves rack of lamb and Chilean sea bass, but a
mere pot of green tea there will set you back $20. Another chic place is Syr
(Russian for cheese), whose decor suggests the inside of a Swiss cheese and
which in spite of that has very good Italian food.

The main restaurant at the National Hotel is traditionally Russian, with
suckling pig, sturgeon, and pike perch in cream on the menu. The bonus: a
lovely Kremlin view. (The diner with the shaved head and the well-cut suit,
attended by aides and decorative young women, is a prominent figure in an
ultranationalist political party.)

Georgian restaurants abound. Try Tiflis, just off Ostozhenka Street. Hors
d'oeuvres, including eggplant stuffed with walnut, are excellent, though the
main courses are variable (try the chicken Tabaka). Very good wine from the
owner's vineyard costs just a little more than tea at Uley.

If you like blood sports with supper, Beloye Solntse Pustyni (White Sun of
the Desert, also the name of a Soviet cult film) has cockfights on Monday
along with good traditional Central Asian dishes such as plov, a rice pilaf
with chicken and seasonings.

Much of Moscow's street food -- the dumplings known as piroshki, pies
stuffed
with meat or vegetables, potatoes filled with herring and onion -- is
delicious. But hepatitis is a risk. A far better bet is to visit a market
such as Dorogomilovo, near the Kiev railroad station. Buy fruit -- including
succulent, almost purple tomatoes from Central Asia -- fresh herbs and soft
cheese from the Moscow region, fresh chanterelles and cepes. Take everything
to a colleague's apartment or your hotel room, along with a bottle of wine
from the city's best shop, L'Intendant, and you will have a sense of what
well-heeled Russians really enjoy these days. And always have.