Dinner and a Show

We went out for dinner last night to a local place called Ragout. It is a very trendy place and was completely filled on a Monday night.  We were able to get a table in the non-smoking section, which seems to be far from the glitz and glamour of the ‘front’ room.  It has a very interesting menu with lots of things that we wanted to try, but first there was the wine to consider.  It is a nice wine list with almost all of the wines available either by the glass or bottle. They had a very nice Montes Sav Blanc from Chile for only 900 Rubles. My mind still boggles over being able to say an inexpensive wine is only $33.  The wine came and I saw that it was a Sav Blanc and we continued our conversation as it was opened and served. It was a very, very good wine and the server kept it behind me in an ice bucket, almost unheard of in Russia.

Cindy started with a Carrot and Ginger soup while I had the Onion Tart. Her soup was great but my tart lacked character and flavor.  She then opted for Butterfish wrapped in bacon with some wonderful vegetables. The fish must have been wrapped with bacon for a long time and it was imbued with bacon flavor, which isn’t one of Cindy’s favorites (from CC: it said “crispy” bacon so I thought I could take it off, but it was very soft and it completely encased the fish). I had something called flattened veal chop.  If that chop had been any thinner I could have used it as a screen protector for my iTouch; we are talking about four ounces of meat flattened to the size of a small hand.  I would like to say it was filled with flavor, but I can’t. The best part of the meal was the caramelized fennel, which was perfect and the whipped celery root, which again was delightful.

They had some very interesting desserts, which normally we wouldn’t even consider but given the portions we had for dinner we were both a bit peckish so we ordered the weirdest dessert on the menu: Beetroot Ice Cream with Rye Bread Ice Cream.  I mean really, how Russian can you get.  When it came the colors were really vivid and the beetroot was very good capturing the natural sweetness of beets.  The rye bread ice cream was a bit of a stretch, especially with the chunks of frozen rye bread mixed in with what appeared to be a honey ice cream. We were happy we tried it since we don’t experiment with desserts nearly as much as we should.

When the bill came I was rather surprised to find that the wine had jumped in price from 900 to 1500 rubles.  Not only that, but the name of the wine had changed!  Consulting the wine list again before calling over the server, I couldn’t even find the wine that they were charging us for, and of course the empty wine bottle had been taken away.  I showed the mistake to our server, who really doesn’t speak English but Cindy was very good with her Russian and the server left to get a manager. The manager showed me the wine we had consumed, it was on the other side of the menu, the expensive bottles only section. We tried to explain that we had never seen that side of the menu, that I had pointed to the wine I wanted and that mistakes happen. We had to sit at the table for another ten to fifteen minutes while they figured it all out and corrected the bill.  As we left we wanted to hand our server a rather large tip, since it wasn’t her fault that they didn’t train her well. She wouldn’t take it, so we went to the manager again and asked her to give it to the server and she seemed overjoyed that we would make such a gesture.  We are many things, but we are not cheap, ugly Americans!!

On the topic of interesting menus, you just can’t make this stuff up!  Here is a photo of the scallop dish I did two nights ago. 

Poached Scallops with Casarecce

Casarecce Pasta

It has rained all day so I have used the time to take photos of everything we want to sell or give away. Now I just have to get it into a format for Cindy to post at her school.  I’ve also been up to my eyeballs filling out forms.  Insurance forms for my dentist visit, exit visa forms, insurance forms for the movers, power of attorney forms, and three or four forms that I don’t even understand.  Goodness, they don’t make leaving any easier than they made arriving.  The good news is that we had a representative of the moving company come to look at what we are sending back and we are well under our limit so it won’t cost us anything.  Believe it or not, it takes 2.5 months to get things from Russia to Charles Town; how is that for convenient?!

Speaking of dentist, on my walk yesterday I went past the German Dental Center, The American Dental Clinic and The French Dental Centre, but not one Russian dentist office.  I know they exist since someone has to put those steel and gold teeth in Russian mouths, but I certainly can’t find them.  Cindy had her teeth cleaned the day after I had mine cleaned.  You’ll remember that they charged me three thousand rubles since it took them 27 minutes.  In Cindy’s case, it took them ten minutes and they didn’t even charge her.  I would like to believe they were trying to make it up to us, but I think it was more a question of Cindy having better dental hygiene than me. (from CC: this was not what you’d call a good cleaning job!)

I depart for Charles Town tomorrow morning. I have to leave with Cindy at 6:45 in order to take the Metro to the train station for the 7:30 express to the airport.  You have to allow lots of time for international flights to the USA now so getting to the airport at 8:20 for a 10:20 flight is even cutting it close.  I’ll fly with Singapore Airlines to Houston and then have a three hour wait for my Continental Airlines flight to Dulles which, if all goes well, will get me in at 9:30 pm.  I’ve arranged to stay at the airport Hyatt Place so as not to be driving tired and in the dark.  Unless Cindy decides to write about Moscow, you can expect a one-week lull in communications, which I’m sure will be a welcome respite for all. 

Best wishes, Cindy and Wm