Sanduny Baths, the banya in Moscow

The Lonely Planet Moscow guide starts with a “Top Five” list that rates a visit to the Sanduny Baths as Number One. I didn’t think a visit to a Russian banya sounded very appealing (the descriptions I’d read made it sound more fun if you’re a man), but Jon went and loved it. So here’s [...]

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Moscow and St. Petersburg Restaurants

Just a quick(ish) wrap-up on the places we ate in Moscow and St. Petersburg a few weeks ago. Cafe Pushkin and Molokhovets Dream got their own posts because they’re expensive, “destination dining” types of places that get written up everywhere. And this post is where I’ll quickly summarize some of the other restos to give [...]

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Molokhovets Dream, St. Petersburg

Not learning our lesson at Cafe Pushkin about the questionable quality-to-price ratio of high-end Russian restaurants, Jon and I ate at Molokhovets Dream in St. Petersburg, too. We liked the description of the restaurant in this 2007 New York Times travel article. According to the NYT blurb, the place has six tables, good food, and [...]

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Cafe Pushkin, Moscow

Many of the high-end Moscow restaurants that get current hype in English-language sources sounded unappealing to me, largely because they follow the trend right now in Moscow for “themed” restaurants. Shinok, for example, has live farm animals to enhance its peasant house theme, and Turandot seems to get press that focuses only on the $50 [...]

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Russia: My Faves and Not-so-faves

Jon and I have just returned to London. Our trip to Russia was fun and fascinating, but it was exhausting. I’m now thinking about out how best (i.e., at what level of detail) to share our adventures there. As a start, here’s my list of favorite and least-favorite parts of our trip: Five favorite things [...]

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Zdrastvuite from Moscow

Jon and I arrived in Moscow this evening to start our nine-day holiday in Russia. The weather is mild and sunny, and we’ve settled smoothly into our rented apartment near Tverskaya metro station (aka Pushkinskaya or Chekhovskaya). As you’d expect, every sign and map here uses the cyrillic alphabet, so lucky for us that we’ve [...]

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Hakkasan, Soho (revisited)

While at Sake No Hana, Jon and I found ourselves saying things like “the food here isn’t as delicious and exciting as it is at Hakkasan.” And then it occurred to me that I hadn’t been back to Hakkasan in well over a year. (My last two meals at Hakkasan were in November and December [...]

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My First Meme

So from what I can tell, memes are the chain letters of the blog world.  I’ll try anything once, and this one’s about books, so I feel good supporting that. I’ve been tagged by The Thoughtful Dresser: Pick up the nearest book. Open to page 123 Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. [...]

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