And what a transformation it is. The old cozy, casual little bar-eatery has turned into a stylish restaurant with unconcealed elitist pretensions. Prices have shot up, but remain reasonable by Moscow standards, and the decor lacks that out-of-a-catalog look that's de rigueur in this town. Mosaics on the walls depict seaside-village scenes reminiscent of the Mediterranean, apparently signifying that this is a seafood restaurant. A phone call to the restaurant confirmed this -- and they said it's changing its name to "El Marino."
If you're hoping to make an unobtrusive entrance, forget it. The waitstaff, in funny little hats presumably meant to make them look nautical, clang a bell whenever anyone walks in. It's a bit off-putting, but at least they appeared glad to see us.
On the menu, you'll find many grilled seafood dishes, plus plenty of meat and vegetarian options. We were disappointed to find no Russian draught beers, and had to take Czech Budweiser at 130 rubles a half-liter.
Most of the mains cost more than tight-fisted people like us wish to spend, and so we chose only from among the cheapest things on the menu.
"Vsegda k pivu" was a delicious bowl of boiled prawns with thousand island and garlic sauces (280 rubles). Surely they'd just boiled up a bag of frozen prawns from a supermarket -- so how could it taste so good? We could've gone for seconds.
The vegetable shashlik-grill (150 rubles) was skewered tomato, peppers, eggplant and zucchini in a delicate marinade of wine, lemon, rosemary, olive oil and capers -- absolutely scrumptious -- and the sidedish of rice with vegetables and champignons (90 rubles) was also somehow out of the ordinary. I'd ordered spicy adzhika (50 rubles) and forest-mushroom sauce (90 rubles), expecting the vegetables and rice to be bland, but the sophisticated flavoring of the grilled, marinated vegetables made the sauces unnecessary -- although the mushroom sauce was exceptional. Unfortunately the postnoye, or lent, menu, where we found the veggie shashlyks, is not always on offer.
My dining companion's chicken grill with bacon (270 rubles) turned out to be a large serving of (surprise, surprise) chicken pieces wrapped in bacon: "Delicious," he said.
We left feeling absolutely satisfied and vowed to return -- but to be honest, we would've left after checking the prices if they hadn't shamed us into staying by ringing that damn bell.
Grill-Restaurant Na Brestskoi [El Marino]. 76 Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Ulitsa. Metro Belorusskaya. Tel. 251-1040. Noon to midnight. Credit cards: soon to be accepted.
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