Adding the prefix green to a name is a genius marketing strategy, aimed at ones caught up in the vegan craze and those that are concerned with their health and the planet. Conscientious ones. Considering that it is fashionable and cool to be green, the latter is less about being and more about seeming. They insist that their food is ethically-sourced, plant-based, fresh and additive free. Not only are they green, but also they are a fast food cafe. To those that don»t care about fashionable health fads, that name would be associated with saving time and money.

Doctor Soloway is one curious and inquisitive character, when it comes to tasty food that you don»t have to feel shame for, later (why did we do it and what is the damage, sort of feeling…)

On our way home, after a filling lunch, we saw those green letters and simply couldn»t walk past, without checking the place out.

We stepped in

Walls covered with posters proclaiming benefits of micro-greens, superfoods, sprouts, convection steam ovens (a way of achieving tempura-like, crispy results without deep-frying in carcinogenic oils). Our eyes lit up with an infernal light («…it looks like the place where I’ve parked» (c)). We figured we»d be back for dinner.

Then there was also a lunch. Same place (three minutes from home…why did I not see it before??) Like at any fast-food joint, the menu is tight and in a matter of a few visits, we covered it all.

First of all, the asparagus, in crispy buck-wheat coating , without a gram of oil, with a selection of three vegan dips, is the fucking bomb! Order two, make no mistake.

Then green-burger in salad leafs (they offer a yeast-free bun, but I try to stay away from any sort of bread). There are two versions: A chickpea patty with a mustard sauce, or buckwheat patty with a truffle sauce. Both are good, but being a truffle fan, the latter is a winner in my books.

Then there were different salads: those infamous micro-greens, seaweed , raw zucchini, and fruit.

Well, and those juices, smoothies, tofu cheesecakes, dried-fruit candies with fresh raspberry filling.

Overall, it is quite standard, with the only difference of it not being a restaurant, but a fast-food joint…with according prices and service speed.

One joint is definitely not enough to cover the entire city. They should plan an expansion and take over Moscow. Hmm…(rubbing my palms)…or someone else will do it…

It’s like a picture of California: a dry coast, scorched grass, an indecent color of the sea – almost violet with flashes of emerald here and there.

And there’s a “tent” ashore with no windows, no doors, even no walls. It’s windy.

We come in.

There’re three men wearing gold watches.

“Ciao, ragazzi!” they say.

Obviously, they aren’t waiters, but they bring the menu. We sit down at an empty plastic table (they’re all empty so far), and they carefully wrap it in a paper cloth with a ship drawn on it.

They persist with plastic: glasses and plates, forks/spoons. The truth is that nothing would look here as harmoniously as plastic, into which they’ll soon put its antithesis.

It’s a kind of performance: the dead meets the living. Even though this “living” is totally dead and drawn out from the sea, all the same it’s more alive than any plastic could ever be. I guess this is the pictorial way the smart art dealers would describe the process, but these’re just some guys with intuition who want to save a little money.

To hell with the lyrics!

There’re urchins at 60 cents. Nobody orders less than “cinquanta” that means 50, just enough for a full tray. With seaweed and seawater.

Fish’s at 40eur a kilo. It can be of any kind, depending on what they’ve managed to catch today. Grill. Fucking delicious.

Pasta’s at 7-12eur. Fucking delicious squared.

Mussels, sarago, parago, carabinero prawns, octopus, vongole, urchins/urchins/urchins, spigola, orata, just shrimps, scampi, ruby Sicilian shrimps come at a burger price in MacDonald’s, but with the quality of a prototypical ideal shrimp if such a thing was present in the bureau of Weights and Measures.

By one a.m. the place is packed.

What’s been eaten will never be back – so you’d better come earlier.

Hey, do enjoy!

«Every action has an equal and opposite reaction» is a vulgar interpretation of Newton’s third law, learned back in school. While being against any extremes, sporadically, I tend to self-indulge, allowing the rare hedonistic urge to take over. As I stepped onto the ascetic path of veganism, I was and still am an avid supporter of a belief that «the best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield it…». If you can’t, but really want to — not only you can, but you should.

So I gave in, big time. This I will remember, and the stories I will tell…

Farm-to-table restaurant LavkaLavka (yes, the chain stores that share this same name are a part of the brand), positions itself as a «new Russian cuisine», using only local and seasonal produce. All-fresh, organic, certified. Just how I like it.

There was everything. F*ckload, and a bit more. My vegan aspirations vanished along with the first glass of a full-bodied, Russian red, Krasnostop wine. In a simple and playful dance, it hopped above many French/Italian equivalents.

Then I fell into a kaleidoscope of appetizers: cheese varieties, veggies, sea food, pâté, caramelized pine cones (quite good!!!), and so on. Tomato tartare with kale chips and vanilla goat cheese; burrata with beet mousse; Kamchatka king crab with ricotta and pear; spelt bread with salt and home-pressed oil; sbiten/vzvar/kissel/nalewka (all sorts of liquors and decoctions). This type of feast is what fairy tales are made of. Skatert-Samobranka or magic tablecloth in action. A vast selection, splendid in all its multitude of potential scenarios.

For mains, we ordered to share duck and chicken breasts, a burger, and venison.  Regardless of my, evidently loose vegan moral, and shaky gastronomical principles, at this point it was obvious, that a lengthy abstinence from meat, inevitably, affects the taste buds. In other words, there was no way the meat and the poultry were getting in. At all. None the less, it didn’t stop me from praising highly the quality of the ingredients and the skills of the chefs. With pleasure, I gulped down the side of the duck dish (strawberries with cucumber, herbs, wheat sprouts and poppy seeds), and watched my fellow diners, greedily devour the juicy meats, in silence. It is a good sign.

Then came desserts: beetroot panna cotta, pastry tubes stuffed with pumpkin cream and pine nuts, and a chocolate extravaganza with truffle oil. We polished it all with juniper samogon (moonshine).

The vegan is happy.

Why did we need to go to the formerly glorious, now industrial town, where Modigliani was born, and a tsar liked to visit, because of its racetrack and ancient thermal baths? Now, all that is left of the previously blooming town are ruins of the ancient citadel, a cargo port, three squares with statues and desolate bank buildings, a branch of canals, striving towards Venetian, and a tiny promenade with mansions, slightly influenced by Mauritanian style. There is, however, a Naval Academy, for the lovers of sailors and extra excitement on those long summer nights.  Overall, Livorno is a sleepy hollow that wakes up three times a year, for a regatta, a festival celebrating the grape and mushroom harvests, and a «venetian celebration» on that canal branch. Deadly boring, BUT…

We searched and dug. If you dig deeper, you can find many more aspects that make this port worthy of a visit. Avoid the chaotic industrial and newer dirty parts, heading directly to the southern borough, where prosperous Italian pensioners forgot, with time, about the harm of smoking and binge-drinking, and made it to the age of graying private parts, without the aid of doctors and ambulances. They are aided by the crystal-blue sea and old Pancaldi thermae, built back in 1846, a date marked proudly at the entrance.

Overall, it is all about pride here. There is no service at the five-star palazzo for that same reason, but a one-day stay on a goose feather bed is good enough, considering that it opens the best views of the Pancaldi and the neighboring blue lagoons. The spacious halls with columns provide shelter for the remnant antiques that remember the last Russian tsar, and the monstrous painting on the wall depicts him and his wife posing in front of the only local tram. Besides, this town hides so many tasty gems, mentioning them all would take a while. We will tell you a bit about, and give coordinates to the raddest ones.

La Stuzzecheria is our eternal love. A fish shop with cooking on the spot, right across from the yacht marina. Ideal treat for compatriots, not versed in Italian. There is Lana, a lovely waitress, who’s russian is basic and efficient enough to help with the choice and who will wait the table as efficiently. We even tried the «we don’t want to spend much» phrase on them and all we got were understanding smiles, without a shadow of sarcasm or contempt.

The second convenience here is the fish counter, that carries the freshest catch in town, pointing endlessly at which, you will make no mistake. Trust them in choosing the cooking method. In our few visits, they were spot-on. Without lobsters, sea urchin, and excessive drinking, you would leave happy, and about a 100 euro lighter. With them, unzip your wallet slightly wider.

L’Osteiciao – that busy, popular tent on the sea-front, where all of the coastal beau monde hangs, along with some tourists that figured out that this is the place to be. The selection is simple. Starter, pre-sealed and set on a chilled display, a few types of oysters, and shellfish pasta. Three types of wines – and basta. The seats at the wobbly tables on a wooden deck rotate fast. We have Petya and Pile to thank for this lovely find. For Livorno, generally, we thank you guys.

La Madia is of old tradition. This place will guide you to the old world of granny-like charm, with incredible food. I love experiences like this. Along with travel guides of all sorts. The windows are almost fully covered with recommendation stickers from all over the world. It is well deserved. Pink shrimp crudo will seal the impression, ravioli with truffle and desserts that are a 100% «feast for the soul» will please the most demanding. I kind of don’t eat dessert, but here, I was asking for «all of it, por favor!» Overall, good-old cuisine. The owner is an old man. His dog is old. Traditions are old and so are the flavors. Squeeze your credit card, you can’t go without good wine and a digestive. Swipe without looking at the bill. Who gives «quanto» and «costa», when it is magical like this.

After the restaurants, run to the Arts Gallery of Livorno. In the cool of those halls, Italians and Modigliani await.

On this part of the Boot everything’s always more humane. But how come to such an extent?

This is a small town that is distinguished by a peculiar “hole”™. Once a year “Red Bull” occupies it, imposing some infernal militant marketing on it, and this eventually pushes some idiots to jump in the hole.

Clearly, on this occasion the whole town is filled with crowds desperately waiting for something till the very night. This time they even had turnstiles like in the subway so it was impossible to walk around.

But don’t you worry.

It’s quite a usual kind of scum thing but a very relaxed one, typical for southern Italy. It can hardly bother you.

The restaurant we want is right opposite the jumping platform, it has a balcony and everything. Seems like they could get the most valuable benefits of such a location, but they aren’t after it.

This is a sanctuary!

We enter (with a reservation – the place is full).

We take a seat on the balcony. The short menu’s in plastic. The most expensive wine costs 22uro, the most expensive dish (apart from those that are dealt per weight) 25.

“Oh well,” we think, “now we’re going to get some incredible 10 Euro trash”

Luckily, we’re always lucky, so we’re wrong.

Ok, they bring “this”.

And this, and this. Everything’s in the price range from 10 to 25.

Ok, fuck the cost, though in Europe you can hardly find something at such a low price. Now I have to explain something. I’m a big fan of raw crustaceans/shell mollusks – the important thing is their quality.

And I can definitely say that I can’t recall having seafood of such quality before. Ok, probably, it was mere luck. Maybe it was just a nice day, but really a lucky one, because this seafood wasn’t disguised in any kind of light sauce, neither it was marinated, not even for a minute. It missed nothing; it was perfect on its own.

All the possible taste gradients were there. Starting from the taste of the sea up to the slightly sweet flavor of volgole, with all the semitones and nuances. There was no sign of “fishness”. But fuck the “fishness”, you could even hardly notice its “animalness”: it was rather like you’re having some strange sea minerals, which for un unclear reason you’d never had before.

Hey, I’ve just dedicated two paragraphs to this, uf…the description’s colorful, but indeed it’s difficult to pack it all into letters.

Well, now I want to perform a gastro-experiment: a descriptive one. For instance, this raw red shrimp has creamy flavor and consistence with almost inaudible salty and iodide notes and is sweet atop. Neither fish nor ooze, nor even “sea”, which are the most usual signs of freshness, are found in it. This means that there’re no symptoms/attributes of freshness but what we taste is the freshness itself being freshly dead. Could this be the taste of recent death?

I have to mention that this fairy tale doesn’t apply to the entire menu. For example, to my taste risotto and black pasta were “too fresh’’, they had too many details. Cuttlefishes were almost raw. No black thick sauce that I like. But this might be my subjective point of view.

However, there were EXELLENT paccheri. Al dente was almost crunchy, though it had absorbed all the broth and tomatoes. As usual, if this kind of pasta is cooked properly, you can just throw away all “the bounty of the sea” from your plate and gobble up the spaghetti on its own, as it’s supermighty and extremely convincing (the price’s just 12eur).

Then there was also scorpion fish, tasty (60eur), but it’s a digression. The main characters are pasta and crudo, that’s what you should come here for.

There’s also bonus: the sunset and the bay with rocks.

Do enjoy.

Lots of color in Georgia…

This is the first thing that strikes us, who are stuck in the “hyperpolises”, squared and nested. Of course, we’re aware of places like Thai and India, Caribbean Islands, Zanzibar, etc. But the main difference here is that we’re talking about only a two-hour flight. It’s almost like a short trip to your country house.

For some time the place was unfairly neglected, so now it feels like something very new.

The reconstruction’s unfinished!

It’s the next thing that’s difficult to look at. One can see the skeletons of the towers ready to become luxury apartments/hotels. The construction boom had its start but then froze like a prompt, but silly flower/teenager, which has just begun to bloom. Good thing – this failure didn’t let Batumi turn into another shitty Dubai.

The construction thing shot up but then slowed down as it’s a habit in Georgia. It’s super slow motion in here, 500 frames per second.

I guess they just didn’t dare to disturb the local lifestyle in the end. Oddly enough, the Soul of the city remains in this incompleteness. The place is stabbed all over with ruthless and merciless contemporary Georgian architecture, but still is unique. It has a powerful foundation of broad avenues and quays. There’s also a huge lake right in the city center, looking into the near-by houses, and the eyelashes of trees are all around, and among them relic larches put quietly their shaggy paws atop the roofs of five-storey soviet buildings.

Abundance of food in here!

Oh, yes! The best restaurants are cut into the buildings, which means they’re arranged in ordinary apartments. Also there are some fancy verandahs on the coast. Then there’re some great restaurants in hotels and markets, in sky lofts of new buildings, and even in basements and cellars. If they got a permission, they would arrange a restaurant in each and every passing by car.

It’s no use talking about the local food. No point in it. Food is a religion for them. Everybody knows it. Get together all your stereotypes and multiply them, then you’ll gain some impression.

Walking along the coast by the infinite verandahs full of thin volleyball players, you look at the posters and you’re amazed at the names of the artists who perform here: from Betoko up to Myjuice, including many other names.

Thank God Batumi hasn’t turned into something as dull as Cannes. Life’s everywhere – disorganized, colorful, glib.

Of course, there’re some luxury moments. One can’t help it.

The “luxury” sprouts, but not that easily: the city resists with all its asymmetric back streets.

It’s a wildly amazing place. It’s more like some kind of a superb “Young Communist camp” rather than a sea resort.

Actually, they have pretty much everything. The hotels have already become quite decent, there’re bicycle tracks, clean sea and a quay from one end to the other.

The only thing missing is the boring rules. Not yet! If you wish, you can have fireworks right under your windows or a disco party till the morning. In short, it’s not Europe.

I think, we’re really lucky to have such place. Do enjoy!