In my first travels abroad I remember how I relished the novelty and exoticism of the enormous variety of ethnic restaurants that could be found easily in every major Western city.


Here at home, we could only dream of them. The most exotic food we could find was in Georgian restaurants, with their invariable kharcho and shashlik. There was a Chinese restaurant in Moscow's Peking Hotel. Never having been to any other, I had no way to tell how good or bad it was, but I remember a sarcastic comment from a friend: "The Peking is the best restaurant in Moscow, and the worst Chinese restaurant in the world."


Somebody told me that the opening of several Chinese restaurants in a city is a sure sign of economic viability. Having no illusions about my St. Petersburg, I patiently waited, and with guarded optimism I began to read reviews of the first "authentic" places opening in Moscow. In the meantime, I, of course, never missed a chance to try something new on every trip -- now not only to the West but to Moscow as well.


It would be unfair to say that things have been quite frozen in St. Petersburg. One after another, a step at a time, new places have been opening. I do not know whether we have reached economic viability yet, but without much stretching one can already talk of a more or less developed ethnic-food scene in St. Petersburg.


Each of these places is worth a separate review, but let this column be a brief introduction to the gastronomic world outside major hotels and Nevsky Prospekt. That is not to say that major hotels are to be ignored: The Grand Hotel Europe, for example, boasts of its Chopsticks, which has very decent Chinese food, but it is as expensive as everything else at the Grand.


The options are not exactly plentiful yet, but among Chinese eateries you can also choose between the Shanghai, with its elaborate, and somewhat tasteless, Soviet-accented design; the Heibei, with a cafeteria downstairs; and a mysterious, nameless place on Ulitsa Rubinshteina, where the food is probably the best of all. At the mystery restaurant there is no sign on the door, and the Chinese staff speak no English and hardly any Russian.


There are at least two Korean places, an excellent Indian restaurant named Tandoori, and the newest arrival: Vietnamese Gold Dragon. For a few months in the summer, the floating Commodore Hotel, then anchored in the harbor, had a Tex-Mex bar. Now the Commodore is gone. Meanwhile, rumors about a new Mexican restaurant somewhere on Sadovaya Ulitsa remain empty talk.


What all these restaurants could use is more advertising, since for many Russians, if not for most, these cuisines remain terra incognita.