Lost in translation

We have had dinner in the Anastasia VIP Hotel at Listvyanka these past two nights because it is a long way to go to anywhere else. 

On a two night stay we would normally eat once where we are staying and once somewhere else.  Not really possible here

Last night we sat by the window with a wonderful lakeside view and were presented with a huge leather bound menu and wine list.

Not having had a drink for four days we saw they had an Australian Shiraz and at a reasonable price so ordered a bottle.  The waitress has no English and nor has the receptionist but the receptionist has some French so we thought we were fine.

Not so fast.  There was none of that wine but they did have one at twice the price which we declined.
After ordering something else we called the French speaking receptionist and said "what have they got that is not at the price of the aforementioned bottle of red"

We settled for an Australian Riesling which was fine and not too expensive. I know we should not be drinking wine here but the alternatives are not great and we fancied some

Now on to the food.

After much choosing and being told that stuff was not available we asked the same question, "what do you have"

We thought we were ordering one fish soup and one soup with pancakes and mushrooms. I was relying on the soup with pancakes to be like something we had seen earlier in the day in a café.

We also ordered Manchurian deer under mushrooms which was described thus on the menu with an added explanation to say it was wild bears ears!!! Tone ordered a mysterious dish which said it was meat with vegetables and sauce.

What we got

First course for both of us. Two huge mushroom stuffed pancakes which had been bread crumbed and deep fried along with bowls of pale thin stock with piles of dill in it. 

One pancake each delicious, soup not great

Second Tone got a bowl of soup, same as before we think but with some fish in it. Fish ok stock not great

Third I got some dumplings with a venison, game tasting filling and a mushroom sauce. Eight in all in the dish. Four delicious, rest too much
Tone got a bowl of mixed vegetables with some meat and gravy.  Not great but edible.

Coffee is great

So tonight we thought we will make it simple. Steak and chips and a bottle of the same wine

We needed to order some side dishes so we ordered mushrooms for Tone and ratatouille for me. The latter on the recommendation of the receptionist.

Can't go wrong there!! Oh yes you can

What we got.

Two steaks which if they were called braised and were served with gravy would have been fine but they were very overcooked and past their best

The ratatouille and mushrooms turned out to be mixed vegetables and mushrooms. Again not bad if that was what you ordered but we didn't. The chips were not good. Undercooked but over fried so dark brown.

We thought we would have pudding and I settled for ice cream. Tone asked for a mixture of mountain berries with honey.  The ice cream was ice cream but Tones berries with honey were frozen. Straight out of the freezer. The result was that by the time he complained to the waitress and she had called the receptionist the honey was solid and all was not well. "I can make it warm for you" "yes please" result a delicious dessert but not what we had ordered.

I said earlier of the place we are staying. If you suspend all expectations of what you think it might be like you can probably laugh about it all but the chef here is not great and the menu is too ambitious. Hey ho.

If you consider that whilst all this was going on there were great plates of ice floating past the window and the sun was setting on the distant snow capped mountains it did not seem so bad.

When the ice flows knock together great flakes of ice rear up and then slide down onto the flow and they sparkle. Wonderful sight. Never mind the bears ears!