We enter.

Radical experience: the entire place’s loaded with stuff from the Belgian Sempre™, a sort of “vikings strike back at the luxury”. I doubt something like that can be seen in a regular house, at least not to such an extent. Here as well it’s more like a show room; however everything’s in harmony despite its natural brutality.

Stone/stone table tops. Wood, which couldn’t get more wooden. Everything’s “craft” but in the good sense of the word: everything that really annoy you in any other place, here is perceived as a norm or even better – because of the insolence of the whole desigh.

Plus/plus they have lots of plants hanging from the ceiling arranged by Visionär™ (it’s a fashionable Moscow brand). They call it vertical jungle, no faggot dick stuff, looks really great, though brutal like their lock in the bathroom (damn it).

Very friendly staff, so you even catch yourself thinking: “Are they trying to fuck me over?”

We take a seat and order half of the menu.

This is the most illustrative photo: the crockery’s rough – and devastated.

They have some very fresh food here, maybe too fresh for Moscow standards: sort of post-gastro-revolutionary™. If “Ragout” was to open now, it would be like this.

Spicy slider (not just spicy, but rather savory) is on the highest level.

The dishes are shouting aloud about their components.

Everything’s marinated or in sauce, in hot cheese or with additives, served in small bowls. If it’s not enough for someone and “the soul craves for more” – you can put above two or three additional taste layers.

To me it’s much cooler than “the weak-ass hipster humus” ™.

You can eat almost everything with your hands. For instance, the ribs go off if you just slightly press them but still don’t lose either texture or form – the pig’s died for a reason. Raviolis are gradient, offering in one bite some absolutely Japanese broth and Italian cream cheese.

For the brave ones there’s the atomic bomb, a bowl of melted cheese with some ‘new’ potatoes inside, a sort of gratin. Causes addiction.

The premiere of an a capella quintet who were singing in different parts of the hall was an additional attraction. They performed a seamless mix of kolyadkas, “Nochnye Sanipery” and even David Bowie (for Christ’s sake!).

“Ground control to Major Tom”

Actually, in the overall hubbub at first their sound was perceived at the level of “what was it?”, then you tried to listen, then you put away your fork.

“You’ve really made the grade”.

This is a real discovery/discovery. An instant immersion. I give standing ovation.

Let’s wish this ship an excellent and long journey.

Do enjoy!

PS: Oh yeah, and the cat. Lives. There. A beautiful one.

PPS: Well and brownies right from the oven go perfectly good with their self-made ice cream (though I don’t really like sweets).

One person who is close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, named Boris (he wished to remain incognito; a brilliant, cheerful and merely a great man!), told me that there’s a cafe in Vienna adored by all the diplomatic workers where tremendously good pork ribs are served. However, he was distressed because he thought the place had been closed down.

Indeed, it turned out that the cafe had shut down, but only for renovation. For the past three months the place has been open.

It’s located not far from the touristy center of Vienna, in a quiet place next to the water, and is surrounded by fancy villas. While we were getting there, the taxi driver repeatedly consulted the map on his phone and even called someone a few times to ask how to get there.

Outside it looks like a kind of a boat shed. The esthetics of a forty-foot container in minimalist-Scandinavian design.

Inside you immediately get into an open kitchen. The hubbub of a typical German beer garden is heard all around. The smell of fried meat activates excessive saliva. You pass by the kitchen and find yourself outside again. The majority of the tables are in the open air, on a quay and on a pontoon. The furniture’s made of wood and is garden type without any tablecloths.

All tables were occupied, the place was full despite the fact it was a Tuesday! We tried to book a table the day before the visit but that didn’t work, reservations should be made at least three days before.

There’s always a crowd at the entrance to the pontoon. It’s a queue on the first-come, first-served basis. You have to wait about 30-40 min. No tourists, only locals.

At last, the hall manager takes us to a free table. Immediately the waiter appears.

The waiters should be discussed separately. They all are huge and brawny men. And so are the women. They carry drinks (mostly BEER) and food (mostly RIBS) on huge trays. The work is organized methodically in Austrian style: one person takes in the order by means of a tablet and immediately sends it to the kitchen, and another brings the food. In the end, the hall, which under the classical approach would require not less than 10 people, here is perfectly attended by 5.

Austrian national cuisine is on the menu. But we have no interest in the menu. Straight away we order the stuff we have come here for: ribs and beer. No need to specify, you are understood immediately.

Ribs are the two ribbons of fantastic fried pork ribs. A minimum of spices, no fat; tasty even if they’re cold. Potatoes are fried in large circles, onion rings, hot pepper and two sauces: garlic mayonnaise and a very hot chili one. The portion is huge. Girls can safely have one for two.

The freshest unpasteurized Budweiser. They make it exclusively for this cafe at a beer factory in Budějovice. This Budweiser is very different from what you normally get in Moscow. Doesn’t matter if it’s draft or bottled. I’m not a big fan of Czech Lager, but here it is the one and only.

Clinking beer mugs, chorus of frogs and no Wi-Fi. Ultimate booze!

Suddenly you feel like you don’t know where you are, what country it is, what city it is and other nonsense. But it is easy to check. Ask them to bring you an adjaruli (an Adjarian khachapuri). If they bring you, for heaven’s sake, a “boat” khachapuri of a two hands size, you’re definitely not in Georgia, especially not in Adjara. Because adjaruli is not a “boat”, it is a lake like Baikal. It is meant not to drink, but to revel.

No idea who came up with this “boat-khachapuri” but he or she definitely should be spanked on the bum and get only dry porridge for breakfast. At least here in Russia the “boat-khachapuri”, the one they call Adjarian khachapuri, at most is an edible bun with cheese spreading on top and an egg in the middle of it. Most of the times the cheese is baked, the egg is raw and floats there like in the universal cosmogony at the beginning of time. And your heart fills up with sorrow and chaos. Because the one who has had Adjaruli in Georgia, moreover in Adjara, indeed knows of sorrow and chaos. They experience the same horrible thing because they’re looking for a real arjaruli everywhere, but all they get is the boat. Even in Perm it pursued me. You might say it is foolish to look for Adjarian khachapuri  in Perm! Ok, ha-ha-ha, but I really don’t think looking for it in Petersburg or in Moscow is less foolish.

Enough! The main thing now.

The real Adjarian khachapuri is almost a perfect circle with “ears”, the dough is crispy (some parts of it are more salty, some less so, but it is all crispy). Inside the circle, you have cheese; it might be young Imereti cheese, Chanach or Circassian cheese, but never Suluguni. The cheese is like… hard to find good words… like a soup. There are some generous chunks of butter in it. And an egg. You can ask for it with one or without it. I personally see no sense in having it without an egg. They serve it and you mix it all. Then you break off the boards, use them to scoop this divine cheese-butter soup and eat. Eat is a silly word here, you can eat a shitty burger at a gas station after a five hour drive without a stop, after not having eaten for an entire 24 hours. But here you’re dying because it is so delicious. Then you are dying again because there’s way too much of it.

But then you have to feel revived, because you need to eat it up!

Now it is time for some cautions. Regarding adjaruli there are two of them. Now I recommend that you listen.

First, don’t be greedy. If they ask whether you want the damp crumb to be removed, do say “yes”. The thin crispy boards and lots of cheese is much better than bread-bread-bread. Don’t be afraid that you won’t get full without it.

Second, many places have three sizes: Big, medium, small. The small one is for one very hungry man. Or for a woman with a child, if they are hungry indeed. The medium one is for three hungry adults. Or for two children and two adults. We have never taken the big one. There are never-ever more than four of us.

And you can’t call us reckless guys.

Why are there specifically these two names in the heading? Lagoon and Retro? Because the very fact of your staying in Georgia doesn’t guarantee you a magnificent adjaruli. But Lagoon and Retro in Batumi indeed do! You don’t come there for a great service, a variety of food, great views or a wide range of wines. The one thing you come there for is adjaruli! In both places adjaruli is the way it should be and even in some sense better!

In Retro there are three sizes. The three of us were hungry and had a medium one. Afterwards couldn’t move for a good while. Two sizes in Lagoon, big and small. We had a big one for three people. In both places we were happy. I wish I could reserve some of this happiness for future use. Pity it doesn’t work that way. I’ll just have to return.

We forgot the picture of the check, oh well. But! The medium adjaruli is 10-12 Lari. Do the math on your own!

I can’t input both addresses below. So here they are:

Retro: 54/62 Zurab Gorgiladze St, Batumi.
Lagoon: 18 Zurab Gorgiladze St, again Batumi.

It is a very special market, maybe even a unique one.

It is spread over an indecently huge territory with five covered pavilions. Nearby stalls flow like streamlets in all directions.

Moreover, behind the fish market, closer to the railway, there dwells his little brother — “the night market”.

I had racked my brains for a long time asking myself “Why?”, “What for?”, “What is this megalomania supposed to mean?” Finally I just googled it.

Each pavilion used to be a dirigible hangar. They say not many of them are left in the world. And this place is special because it has so many of them together.

Gigantic German zeppelins departed from here to London, Paris and Bombay with a romantic farewell, flowers and tears. You know all that emotional soup…

Hell no! From here they flew to bomb neighboring cities. There was no superb port Riga-London- everywhere. Unfortunately no.

In Riga many things, like owls in Twin Peaks™, are “not what they seem”.

But … the romance remains even though it was never there; it has quite confidently grown there later.

You can feel it everywhere: in the overlappings, in the incredibly large scale, in the entire atmosphere of overcoming, destructive as it was with all the bombs, when the world suddenly became small.

Oh well, back to business.

This is the fucking best market in the world and here’s why.

First, what stops me from shopping in a regular Russian market is something like, putting it mildly, their “oriental style”.

Strong accent, poor language and constant imposition.

A Hell.

I always leave with a lot of unnecessary junk, some wasted money and a bad mood.

Here: Zen technology (c).

Unhurried northern people who sell you things with dignity. For instance, tomatoes; it should be noted right now that tomatoes in Latvia are some kind of a national fetish (why/where do they get it in a northern country?). Black, white, yellow, orange, maroon, pink, purple, violet with streaks of gray, striped (ok, at least there’re no plaid ones), very small like berries, very long like fingers, suddenly resembling a boat, in the form of Aladdin’s lamp (do exist!), flat bagels, huge knotty black and green beans. My personal achievement is a 1.4 kilo tomato, you cut it like carpaccio, and slices cover the whole plate.

Sweet as a plum, tart, watery, spicy, with fractures – lots of natural gluconate.

And you can easily buy only one tomato in one place, another in a neighboring place, and still another from the next neighbor. I like to make salad out of 10 tomatoes each a different type, in season, it should be July.  I walk there, choose one by one and no one is bitching around and trying to force me to get myself a kilo.

Calm northern people™.

These tomatoes are somewhat special, you shouldn’t cut them, but rather tear along the fibers, so that you don’t break the texture and destroy the taste.

And mushrooms? Have you ever seen those boletuses from Latgale, or haven’t you? Fuck the porcini mushrooms! When I enter a plane with a basket full of them, even if I’m sitting in the front in business class, people in the back can still smell them. Can you imagine such a SMELL?

Lactariuses of all types, chanterelles, wild champignons… Have you even seen any of them recently? Honey funguses, gypsy mushrooms (grow almost till winter in dunes on the sand), parasols, russulas of all colors, with red pilei (remember them from my childhood).

Starting from early spring snowdrops – ramson – onion – carrot – new potato – rhubarb – fennel – St. John’s Wort – bilberry – raspberry – strawberry – cherry plum – boletus – quince – asters – gladioli – the second autumn raspberry – sea buckthorn – last xerocomus – lingonberry – cranberry – cloudberry…

… and at the very end of the year, in November, under the bare trees, there can be found the meadow saffron, a huge crocus of grey-violet color.

Ducks and guinea fowls, turkey eggs, crawfish, smoked fish, great beef (it is very easy to fry steaks out of it), rabbits, wild geese, wild boar, deer, black grouse, lake sturgeon, trout. They have everything!

I really love those times in Riga, when I go alone in the morning to get tomatoes, strawberries, some true milk and sour cream. Then I come back walking past Bergs and the park to my house in Dzirnavu street, climb up to my loft with its ceilings 5 meter high, prepare the salad with some 40% sour cream and extremely red onions, mix a glass of strawberry with a glass of milk (it turns out so thick that the spoon can easily stand in it), sit on the windowsill, eat, look and listen to the seagulls.

To those naughty gulls.

Of course, the city is full of “doughnutteries” of various calibers.

But in the morning I leave home and walk along Dzirnavu exactly to this one, feeling some very special delight.

A tiny establishment’s slightly away from the tourist path. Next door is the best Riga’s shop of design stuff, not souvenirs but beautiful tableware, textiles and so on, where you wanna buy half of the shop.

To my taste, Kukotava’s the best “doughnuttery” in the city.

If you put a camera overlooking the street with frequency of 1 shot a day, then in about 5 years you can watch Riga’s cafes appear and die – it’s prompt, they open/close down/open/close down. Here everything’s always the same – windy – but Kukotava remains as a bastion.

And so it should be.

Everything’s very authentic. You can order in English or in Latvian and there’s usually a queue, which should be forgiven because of the quality of the bakery.

Everything’s craft (sic!), made of super fat milk and super eggs, and flour is the same. Doughnuts are rolled and molded/baked directly in front of you, right in the hall.

Puff pastry that isn’t at all thin. They don’t have a great variety of fillings. It’s unclear what’s their secret: BUT IT’S DE-FUCKING -LICIOUS.

Each morning everything that’s left from the evening is half price.

And it’s really great that besides sweet ones, they have doughnuts with chicken, cheese, spinach, bacon, meat…

In addition, there’re some really cool cakes, candies, fruit jelly.

And the local blockbuster: the proper Caesar salad. It’s not that case when there’s a sea of sauce with some sluggish leaves drowning in it; it’s crunchy Romano, which is evenly covered, as if with a brush, with a very thin layer of sauce, plus chicken and croutons, which are indeed made not of rubbish, and parmesan. That’s it! Perfect in case your soul asks for mad tasty Caesar, cooked just for you, but doesn’t want to be ashamed for a billion kilocalories afterwards.

And there’s a set of various inexpensive wines from Australia up to Portugal, which is quite good as well.

Do enjoy!

«Superfood for Superheroes» is a life-affirming greeting sign at the entrance. Don’t know what made Ovanes Pogosyan (Argo, Bruce Lee, Belka, Chateau de Fantomas) switch his focus to vegan and raw eating, but the results are pretty good. Opened about a year ago, cafe-lab promotes conscientious (almost medical) nutritional approach to food. To be exact, their focus is not just on flavor combinations, but on nutritional interaction and symbiosis. Apparently, nutritionists were heavily involved in the menu’s conception.

The additional bonus is in superfoods (guarana, spirulina, acai, and other junk). As one of my snide pals would say, «…so healthy that it makes you sick».

“Each one of us has a potential that remains dormant, due to a lack of energy and vitality. It can be woken by a healthy and balanced diet”, that is what they claim here, at Groot.

I, trying to find that hidden potential, tried most of the menu.

What they have to offer: energizing vegan breakfasts (acai bowl, tofu scramble, etc.), soups/salads, tacos/burritos, rolls, veggie pastas, desserts, «super-drinks» (juice mixes/ smoothies, wheatgrass shots), chlorella and tarragon sodas, and so on…you get the concept.

This place does a notable hemp burger (the patty is mostly hemp), and quesadillas. The latter ooze cheese (the vegan version out of engevita and cashew), which tastes like the most delicate creamy perversion.

“Is this really lactose free?”

“Really is.”

Umm, hopefully it is true.