You can hardly ever be surprised by anything in this infernal city-boiler. Definitely no. But!

“Are you going to Trishna?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a really famous place!”

“Ok, famous for tasty food?”

“Famous and tasteful!”

“Excuse me?”

“The food is awesome, for sure!”

“We’re counting on you!”

About 30 minutes by taxi along that crazy kinetic sculpture which the locals call “the city” and you’re there.

A tight street, a shabby entrance, some silly old interior design, it’s narrow inside and overbooked. In short, “this is our client”!

We enter (you must have a reservation) and pass by narrowly placed tables to get to our table. Pictures on the menu and smells make my knees weak and my stomach growl.

We sit down.

The menu. Right here the real problems begin. For example, the crab: Ok, we’ve chosen a hero among crabs but it has EIGHTEEN cooking flavours! Fucking 18! And jumbo shrimps have even more! Namely 22! What are you going to choose?

Great, we did guess right about the crab (garlic/batter), but the chili lobster was just “kind of cool”. So you sit there and greedily peer at your neighbor’s lobsters: grilled in cheese & butter / kalamiri / butter pepper garlic / masala (n.i.) / chilly garlic / masala (s.i.) /schezuan / tandoori / Chinese green sauce / black pepper sauce / ginger garlic sauce / green pepper sauce / hot black garlic sauce…

Yes, you sit there and think – fucking hell, what if «masala (n.i.)» is BETTER?! (EVEN BETTER?!)

And you begin to feel horrified. I’m just kidding!

A very, very, very tasty restaurant: lemon curry, crab, lobster, inescapable chicken tikka masala, raita, salty/sweet lassi and even some simply grilled fish. Everything’s beyond all praise!

Does it have something to do with a different quality of spices? Or is it because it is the homeland of Indian cuisine? I don’t recognize any familiar dishes! Definitely, they all are much better here!

Yes, yes, yes – you’re right, it’s exactly that place.

It’s the one opposite Leform. Indeed, it’s here where Grandpa Hassan was killed by a sniper. This is IT/IT.

It’s open for 20 years already, and many different things can be found there: the main gangsters, not so regular passengers, plastic flowers, artificial bricks on walls and stained glass windows made of plastic of different colors.

I kept thinking, if there was anyone besides me among the visitors of the most esthetic store of the capital™ who also attended this establishment, or if it was totally out of style – to get here directly from the realm of Dries Van Noten, Margiela and Stone Island.

Till one day, when I got to watch an amusing picture: one… mmm, actually, the most-of-the-most-socialite-ladies-of-the-city™ coming out of Leform sort of looked around and slipped in here.

In order to enjoy this place it should be used strictly according to the rules.

Come in, sit down, put aside their huge 200-pages menu wrapped in cellophane and full of all those “sea fantasy” and “chef’s courage” salads, call for the waiter and just talk to him:

“We’d like vegetables and greenery. A big plate, please. So that it’d be tasty, ok?”

“Hmmm [mistrustfully].”

“All kinds of qutabs and matsoni…”

“Also with pumpkin [still mistrustfully, though less]?”

“Two with pumpkin! Two for each of us!”

“Ok, so?”

“And meat, all the most…”

“On the bone?”

“Yes!”

“You’ll have it all beautiful and nice. Also basil lemonade?”

“Yes, and your Azeri water. I forget all the time. What was the name of it?”

“Ok, you’ll get it. You’ll get it all. But please hide the wine you brought in, otherwise the bosses are gonna be really unhappy about it.

This is the only place in Moscow (I do not know any other) where they use saxaul™ wood as firewood for roasting meat.  Therefore, the effect is corresponding – the meat is crunchy from outside and medium inside. Of course, the meat itself isn’t bad at all. All best for the “respectable people”.

Back when even Azbuka Vkusa didn’t exist, in winter tomatoes and greenery was coming here from Iran by plane. We used to get here at night, when it was freezing cold outside and bite into sweet tomatoes so they burst right inside the mouth, and enjoy the smell of cucumbers, and the crunching of the leaves.

It remains that way.

There’s also a lot of extremely “forbidden” tasty stuff: pilaf, chorba, satsivi, flatbread with cheese. I tend to ignore this part of the menu in order to avoid obtaining spherical shape. But you should try it!

Do enjoy!

If, by pure chance, you are tired of the Almaty hyper-shashliks cooked on saxaul firewood and “your heart longs for a little luxury” (c), but isn’t yet fucked up to the extent at which you’re ready to throw out $250 per person in some local version of “Soho Rooms”, go to Ritz and safely press the 28 button in the elevator.

I have to warn you – steaks are at (around) $100.

However, this is the real challenge to those ultimate animal shashliks in the fucking awesome cafes below.

It’s just about some different stuff: like, if you wanna feel yourself in Hong Kong or even in Tokyo. There’s a skyscraper view, complements, super service, and food that is very tasty nevertheless.

Just sit there on your own in an almost hollow lobby of the hotel and eat the salad made with three types of beetroots: pink, yellow and some other one baked with goat cheese, – and wait for a mad tasty steak, and look down at the mountains and the city from behind the windows with a plane view.

The octopus is like an octopus. Of course, it’s more tasty than in Williams. And, oh yeah, this place is the closest one where you can get octopus within around 3000 miles.

This is the place to be with someone tête-à-tête or alone: a meditative place. The waiters hide at once. The wine list is huge (Pino Noir is strictly recommended; really, check it out!).

Plus they have some super generous complements: a cored bun with gruyere, some damn good pâté and homemade pickles – actually, you can safely leave right after them – you’re full.

Do enjoy!

First tell the omniscient taxi driver who suggests talking you to a “nice place to chill”™ to fuck off.

We’re going to a specific address. Yes, it’s really a car and auto parts market. You got it right.

As soon as we leave the car, we’re under attack:

“Dude, tires/wheels?!”

“What are you looking for, guys?”

“Mercedes, and it’s not old at all!”

However, everything’s ok. They aren’t too annoying. We just pass by.

We enter. At once on your left you see a long row of smoking braziers and tents attached to them. We randomly tried 2 places, not having enough strength for more. Leaving the food on the plastic plates with flowers feels like a crime.

It wildly smells of resin and wood. “Saxaul in action!” (c). There’s a blazing bonfire in an iron box on the side of each brazier.

I have to admit that barkers aren’t very imposing, so we just follow my sniff radar.

We order a bowl of pilaf and 4 skewers of shashlik – chicken, lamb, duck and lula.

I have to say a few words about the Kazakhstan duck. Where they get it from is the mystery of nature: there’s a layer of meat like in a cow under its skin – and no fat at all, which is just nonsense.

Then about the FAT. Or rather about its absence – even in pilaf (we’ve tried tree times in three different places) rice crumbles and, actually, doesn’t sink in oil at all. Actually means absolutely. The same can be said about the meat.

Fuck! How incredible it is! Absolutely fucking delicious!

In addition, the Red Data Book saxaul has the highest ignition temperature. Therefore, if you have good hands, you get an ultimate result: there’s a crunchy crust outside, and the meat is medium done inside. So, it’s a chimera of shashlik and steak.

All meat is elastic, and at the same time you can disassemble it into pieces with your lips. Lula has sort of absolutely extramundane texture. Everything smells and hisses, really oozes with taste and doesn’t require any sauce at all.

Each brazier is equipped with a clean tent with plastic tablecloths, lovely waitress-girls and grumpy visitors who find that either “the mouton is shit”, or “there isn’t enough kurdyuk”, or that the chicken is “painted”. In short, those are some professionals.

Choose on your own among a row of “bonfires”. Trust the taste and the smell of it.

Do enjoy!

Everything is very simple: after the Tokyo Tsukiji this one is the most delicious/cool/comfortable market with restaurants dedicated to seafood with reasonable prices.

It’s an entire restaurant cluster, and practically all the restaurants are fucking awesome.

I just wish they weren’t so trickily organized (apparently, it’s Chinese influence): on the right there’s a multistoried restaurant where by some reason they serve only grill, hot pot and sashimi (no way sushi!); in the atrium there’s only grill; on the left there’s a tent with oysters and champagne; down the hallway and to the right there’s a shop with ready-made sets/fruits/flowers/cheese/ham/wagyu/wine and a huge restaurant with sushi/sashimi, which in its turn is divided into sushi/sashimi and seafood platters.

“Meatball comes strictly with rice, patty with potato! It can’t be changed!” (c)

But it’s all bullshit – everything can be forgiven because of the quality, quantity and price.

They’re open from morning till midnight. It gets really busy around 10 p.m., so if booking is available (for example, in the multistoried restaurant it is), do book! Otherwise, you risk spending a couple of hours in the queue. Though meanwhile you’ll be eating boxes of sea urchin caviar and chutoro right from the shelves.

Then… hmm, just have a look at the pictures and you’ll get it: there’s really nothing to talk about except the price: the three of us had a hard time trying to stand up and leave the sushi place for only $100; as for the grill place, we spent $200 there (grill came with crabs and everything).

Do enjoy!

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ve seen them for sure.

Those perfect fruits that look like they were printed on a 3D printer. Each item is located in its own cell inside a box. The price is fucking insane.

They’re usually found in ultra-expensive shops at Ginza, or in Kinokuniya, or in certain boutiques where you can get a gift box full of them.

It’s customary to pay a visit to someone who is apparently very “respectable” with such sets.

I was sure this was no more than a fucking show off thing. Just until the moment I bought a bunch of “3D grapes”, a small one for $70.

Hmm… I must say that that “product” gave me a lasting impression; if briefly, that chimera had nothing to do with ordinary grapes. Not only did it look completely different from the regular one, just like supermodels differ from ordinary people, but it was also the taste: it felt like a perfect model of a grape taste.

It’s hard to explain. It’s different and same at once.

In short, afterwards I’ve tried various types of these kind of superfruits: persimmon, peaches, white strawberries. All of them were beautiful in every possible way except their cocaine’s price.

But once in Taiwan, having some spare hours before the plane, I dropped in to a market opposite the fish cluster in Taipei.

There were empty corridors, barred trading spots and loaders there, and suddenly: the fucking alley “full of life” – 400-meter hallway that was tightly packed with boxes of fruits, looking at which Michurin would stare wide-eyed.

“It’s expensive! It all comes from Japan!”

“Aha-a-a…”

Really, expensive? A fucking box of white strawberry at $30 instead of 120, grapes at 25 and so on; +++ lots of fruits of the quality that you won’t find even in Japan.

Do enjoy!