Restaurateur
Saveliy Libkin

Recipe for July-August per two persons.

Tags: food

Well, so that it will be guaranteed delicious, in good atmosphere and with decent service you should enter web page of Zagat with paid service and having chosen the city to define the top twenty of the restaurants in the wanted category. Usually I choose those restaurants which has no less then 24 points in the categories food and service.  Also you can look through Тоp-10, as a rule these positions can be seen after choosing the city at once. Then you can visit site Via Michelin and repeat all the same. But only at Michelin you should specify do you want restaurant with a star-Best restaurants or with forks-Charming restaurants. I prefer the restaurants with a forks and it must be no less then five forks. Sometimes cozy, small and delicious restaurants without pretensions to luxury which are marked by face-Best value are interesting. Then you can read what the «writers» tell about selected restaurants. Then you can write down approximately ten restaurants which you liked and to call your fellows and make inquires about these restaurants sure if any. Now we can say that in fact the first stage of the selection is passed. Then when you come to hotel you should talk to concierge and to specify thoroughly that the restaurants which visiting card are already on the reception in readiness are not interesting for you absolutely and showing him the preliminary list ask him to describe each of them. Of course, further you should tip the concierge depending on hotel’s rating and on the time spent to your question. Usually the sum is from 5 up to 25 Euros. If you liked the restaurant then further you can make inquires about it having specified what type of food you prefer and how much you are ready to spend.  In the decent hotel a concierge always is abreast of restaurant subject. And you are planning to come to this city the second time then you can come to agreement about reservation of the best restaurants for your name by phone beforehand. Sure a concierge will ask you will you stay at this hotel, he will mean if he can reckon on the tipsе. If you risk to reserve a restaurant without making inquires in hotel, then it will be enough just to send them e-mail or to call them and to discuss the nuances of you visit. Some successful restaurants in London, Paris and other cities similar by rating complicate the reservations requesting number of credit card or specifying have you visited this restaurant earlier. In the result many things depends on what you want to get really. If you are interested in luxury and plenty of stars, plus chef’s rating then as a rule the check will be plus 50% and all the rest depends much…. So it is better to visit the restaurants of Alain Ducasse in Paris or Monte Carlo only if you have too many money. If your goal is to visit the best restaurants according to the rating of London Restaurant Magazine., then in the case of your visit to Heston Bluementhal or to Ferran Adrià you will have to worry about it 3-4 months prior. Besides you should understand that the restaurants named by experts the best turns out to be hard to compatible with the notion «excellent dinner with a bottle of wine at a price $100 maximum». However, I doubt whether anyone come to these restaurants to have a lunch or dinner, most likely people come there to get impressions or just to put in an appearance. In any case you also should be ready for that after the visiting of «the best» you will have the desire to eat vareniki with potatoes or chicken tabaka for dinner.

Tags: Gastro-tourism, food, путешествия

I had to have a snack with my driver in the afternoon. Taking into account our daily two week’s gourmandise in Portugal and Spain, we have limited ourselves to only the first course and tea. I don’t tell where exactly we have a meal on principle but the restaurant is situated on the pontoon and it is moored on the riverside among the other similar river restaurants. At 3 p.m. only two tables including our one were occupied. We were named 4 versions of soups from which we unanimously have chosen chicken broth with noodles and tea. Sure the main emphasis in the conversation was the question about the availability of the discount card and we were offered to get it at once. We have refused as we visit Kiev seldom and in general I am not the supporter of cut-price food. Concerning the fact that we are in the restaurant with name and with huge quantity of marketing printing products on the table and in the room and the restaurant is situated in the proper district of the capital I have expected to get typical broth without oddities. They brought us bouillon cup of boiling water with boiled in it 6 pieces of  broiler breast and a spoon of frozen peas and a spoon of frozen carrot from the bag, probably made in Poland or Hungary. The part of noodles was performed by the grey vermicelli. Then they served the tea in the teapot. The waitress decided to pour the tea by herself as she tells beforehand that the lid can fall out of the teapot in the inexperienced hands… In short we have drunk water of two types, settled out account and left. My nasty mood after the soup I have referred to the mistake with choice of the restaurant. And also I have thought over about how they manage to sell “this” to the residents of Kiev and at that to operate for a long period of time and even to spend money for the papers with promo and discount cards.

Maybe exactly this is called business in Kiev? But it’s a pity that it has the prefix restaurant…

Tags: food

I don’t know yet at what restaurant this dish will appear.  I don’t know yet  how it will be  named and how much it will cost.

That is why I have some questions:

How can be named such dish?

What version of serving is more interesting?

What price for this dish will seem delicious?

What ingredients are included in this dish?

More precise definition: toasts are hot and all the rest is cold. It is very delicious.

Tags: food

Ingredients for about 8 persons

5 cloves  of crushed garlic

30 grams of fresh ginger cutted into pieces

70 ml of soy sauce

juice of two limes

To rend by hand a bundle of coriander and remove rough stems

800 grams of tuna, desirable fresh one

1/2 of spicy red pepper  like chili without seeds

150 grams of good olive oil

To slice thinly tuna and to put in the plate

To crush in the blender garlic, ginger, pepper and oil. Add soy sauce, lime juice and coriander.

To pour tuna with marinade and leave for 1 hour if it is fresh, if tuna is frozen leave it for 4 hours.

Serve ceviche on the avocado slices.

A drop of tobasco and olive oil won’t do any harm while serving.

Tags: food, Севиче, фото

Red borscht. Easter version.

To boil the broth from veal tails beforehand. To separate meat and to put it in the half ready borscht, to throw out the bones.

To boil the broth within 3 hours without bringing it to boil.  30 minutes before it will be ready add the parsley and celery roots and the bunch of parsley. To salt 30 minutes before the readiness.

Then:

150 grams of kidney beans (wetted for the night)

1 medium onion

2 medium beetroots

2 medium carrots

100 grams of celery root

7-10 small potatoes (kind «forty days potatoes»)

Approximately 200 grams of thinly shredded white cabbage

2-3 tablespoons of tomatoes (desirable Mutti Tomates Pelados)

A few cloves of garlic, salt, sugar, pepper, spring onions, parsley, also you can add young garlic

To put the kidney beans in the boiling broth and boil it about 15-20 minutes (to taste in the process of cooking, the kidney beans must be boiled to 2/3 of readiness in this stage). Meanwhile to dice onion and to shred the rest of vegetables – beetroot, carrot, celery root. To brown all these products in the ordinary olive oil, not extra virgin. Then add tomatoes, 1-2 tablespoons of sugar, a little salt and stew within about 1 minute. In this stage vegetables must be half-cooked.

To pill potatoes by special knife so that it will be smooth and obligatory do not cut it, the ideal size of potato is a little bigger then walnut.

Add the kidney beans in the broth and boil within 5-7 minutes, then add stewed vegetables and in a minute add the shredded cabbage. Then taste the quantity of salt, add salt if it is necessary. To boil a few minutes and take off from the heat. It is very important don’t overdo borscht, so that the vegetables will have a nice look but not the look of porridge.

At the very end it is necessary to add 2-3 tablespoons of garlic and greens seasoning cooked beforehand. To grate or to press in the mortar a few cloves of garlic (do not cut!!) and to mix with finely cut greens (you can use young garlic, parsley, dill, celery leaves).

Borscht must «rest» about 20-30 minutes and only after that you can serve it. It is nice to serve this kind of borscht inn the morning, at 09.00 -10.00 a.m. after serious drunken feast the day before with a glass of ice-cold vodka.

Tags: food