Browse column

Talk & Drink Guinness Extra Cold

By Tofer Lamont

When I feel like spending 350 rubles for breakfast, I go to Eat & Talk. The ground level joint has long been one of my favorite Moscow spots for a lot of reasons, and the cheese omelets and fruit fritters are just two of them. I like the place because it's got solid free wi-fi, morphine-high comfortable seating, and enormous naked posters of the fat guy from that Blood Hound Gang album cover. It's also crawling with cuties from the nearby journalism school.

The lunch buffet is another righteous all-you-can-eat deal for 350 rubles, offering fresh veggies, chicken, fish, beef, and well-cooked noodles. I've yet to try the pizza or the sushi, but I can vouch for the U.S. diner-style club and tuna sandwiches, served with fries and slaw. I can also tell you that the Cuban bartenders mix a mean drink and there's lots of it.

But Eat & Talk has been around for-what?-seven years or so, and revisiting its menu isn't the purpose of this review. The above is just an appreciative wind-up to announcing Eat & Talk's new Irish pub, which just opened down the hall from the restaurant/cafe.

Anyone who knew and loved the old Rosie O'Grady's bar on Znamenka will feel a pang upon entering Eat & Talk's new bar, because the entire bar architecture-stained glass and all-was brought over and installed.

Aside from that, the biggest thing to report about the new bar is that it is the first and only establishment in Moscow to serve Guinness Extra Cold. If you don't know what Guinness Extra Cold is, well, it's basically Guinness, but (this is the Guinness website talking) "in a crisper, colder form." Basically it's served 3.5 degrees Celsius colder. Yeah, I don't really get it, either.

Since the bar is connected to the Eat & Talk kitchen, you can stoke your thirst with an array of grilled meats like veal ribs (700r) and pork loin (530r). There's also food galore like wings, and an Irish stew (250r).

Once the place is buzzing with regulars falling off their stools, management says the bar will join the restaurant in staying open 24 hours. Then you can spend all night pounding Extra Colds and stumble down the hall to join me for the breakfast buffet.But if you spill watermelon juice on my laptop, I'll kill you.

Eat & Talk

Mochovaya 7

Metro: Biblioteka

Phone: 961-3101

New Starlite At Last!

By Mark Ames

There have been rumors about a third Starlite opening in Moscow for so long now one began to wonder if it was entering into the list of urban legends and unexplained sightings. Meanwhile, the two extant Starlites at Mayakovsky and Oktyabrskaya continue to be packed with customers, with waits getting a bit long at Mayakovsky. Worst of all, is the high Expat Factor, where you're likely to run into the same expats you've seen for years. Like the eXile editors, for example. Five days a week, minimum.

Anyway, we visited the new Starlite at Universitet, near Moscow State University, and were pleasantly surprised to discover that on the one hand, yup, it's the same Diner down to a T, same vakonchik, same reliable menu and soon-to-be-same standard-setting service. The big difference is the crowd-much more Russian, and much younger, than the other Starlites. We went on a late Saturday afternoon and caught the mallrat crowd. But this isn't a sipping-Pepsi-for-six-hours Kofe Haus mallrat crowd. Their kids with cash, their parents' cash to be exact, and though they're students or recent grads, they spend more freely than, say, oh, the editors of a certain alternative newspaper.

Pages:     Previous   1 2 Next

Print   Share article