Moscow feast

A Soviet-era landmark was the first foreign restaurant in Beijing, and is still a great place to ring in the new year, Mike Peters reports.

Our Russian friends have a gift for making New Year celebrations last ... and last ... and last. Feeling a bit left out, we went looking for a suitable place to join in the merry-making, or at least see what all the fuss was about.

The Chinese capital has plenty of Russian restaurants to pick from, but we couldn't resist the great babushka (grandmamma) of them all. There are zestier - and certainly cheaper - choices, but none quite as original as Moscow Restaurant, which opened in 1954 as part of a huge exposition complex that the former Soviet Union built in the Xizhimen area.

Almost everything about the restaurant is on a grand scale. The brocaded columns in the dining room could permanently arrest your attention if it weren't for the massive gold chandeliers. There are oil paintings in fine gilt frames. Beautifully carved wooden armchairs are upholstered in richly colored floral prints. It's so pleasant that we could never call it vulgar. But you'd never call it homey unless, say, you're the last of the Romanovs.

We started our meal with a big steaming bowl of borscht. Touted in the menu as having been served to Mao Zedong by Josef Stalin, this hearty soup is a given at any Russian restaurant worth its salt.

But this version is no mere standard - it's a triumph. Redolent with beets and cabbage, it also sported nuggets of tender beef snuggled under a drizzle of sour cream. The result is delicately sweet with a fine, tart edge, a bit like your sassiest Russian grandmamma. Almost nothing else we ordered impressed as much.

And we ordered - and liked - a lot of things. Baked cod in cream sauce served Russian style was a delicate delight. The beautifully presented baked trout with mushrooms, tasted even better. Deep-fried pork croquettes had a fine crust around meat that was tender and flavorful.

The deep-fried chicken roll, known as Chicken Kiev at many Russian eateries, was nice and tender, too, and exploded with butter when pierced with a knife. The garlic we eagerly expect to be swimming in that lovely butter was AWOL here, making this dish a little disappointing. The promised side of "potato silk", gleaming on the menu like a little haystack of julienned vegetable, didn't materialize either - a dry wedge of fried potato was a dismal substitute. Tucked on the plate, however, was a tiny pie of sweet peas and cream, such a yummy little thing that the potato flagrante was quickly forgotten.

Also making us feel mellow: the Baltic Beer 7, served in a proper beer glass; if you're really in party mode, there is vodka by the glass or bottle. From an appealing selection of desserts, we chose a lavishly iced chocolate yule-log cake in Russian style, big enough for two to share.

The creamy cod was our priciest choice at 152 yuan ($24), but beef lovers can rack up a hefty bill if ordering Wagyu beef, Australian tenderloin and such.

Bread was served with the meal for an extra 10 yuan - a pair of warm, whole-grain loaves were actually more welcome than the stereotype black bread Russians love to eat while drinking vodka. A concession to Chinese taste, perhaps.

It's tempting to nit-pick in the face of excess, and Moscow Restaurant is so over the top that the Empress Dowager Cixi - no slouch in the excess department - would probably faint with excitement on arrival.

We, however, had no trouble staying upright, enjoying the comfortable chairs and the glitz that somehow stays elegant, not cartoonish. Early most evenings there is a live quartet playing, another reminded that Russians really know how to live it up.

Happy New Year!

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn