Dorpat

Recently one of the Mingus clan experienced another birthday. A unanimous decision was made to dine in the Hotell Dorpat (not Hotel), but only because I was excluded from the voting process. The building looks nice, definitely a good locale overlooking the Emajõgi River, but the restaurant itself is just kind of…boring. The dining room is fully lit at night, making it difficult to see out the floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the drunks feeding the ducks in the dark behind the Tasku mall.

For almost a year now I’ve been picking up favorable chatter about Dorpat’s lunch buffet. Now that they’ve lowered prices from near a hundred kroons to forty kroons for the soup buffet, business is apparently booming in this place, bearing Tartu’s former, German name. And while my review of their entrées is going to be less than ecstatic, I do hope they can stay in business. It would be a shame if they went bust and the premises were occupied by yet another grocery store. At least it would be the Dorpat Hotel, Spa and Supermarket instead of a Mall Rimi.

We’d had reservations for almost a month, to ensure we got a window table for ten. The place was utterly empty upon our arrival. Two more parties of two did arrive before we left, and there was a long dining table reserved, and I hope that was why they had four wait and bar staff on duty for our one table.

For simplicity’s sake we had pre-ordered the package dinners, giving us a choice of grilled salmon, chicken and pork. I chose the salmon. The only side dish offered was mashed carrot and potato. It wasn’t my favorite thing, but I might have also been influenced by the fact that the purée was riddled with shrimp, not described in the menu. Carrot, potato and shrimp purée. Not what I would consider the best idea I’ve ever seen from a peakokk (head chef, not peacock). Unfortunately, the salmon was also a bit, er, boring? Essentially I was not impressed, and I can’t say that I would recommend it to visiting friends. I did try the chicken and pork others in our party had chosen, and it tasted surprisingly like chicken or pork.

The menu itself wished me pleasant taste experiences. As I’ve said before, I find these types of phrases off-putting. Almost like a warning. Not “Enjoy your meal!” but rather,
“We made something really special here
It might in fact go well with tongue of deer
We wish you a pleasant taste experience
And a happy Saku beer!”

I’m really sorry for that. I do apologize.

The kids’ menu was rather extensive, and offered real food as opposed to wieners and fries. My girls wolfed down broccoli and other veggies, but didn’t like the processed, frozen meatballs too much. So I ate them, because I wasn’t full at all.

The one redeeming experience here was the wait staff. Because we had three of them serving us, we didn’t have to wait long for anything. They were pleasant, as the menu hinted at, professional and they even smiled! Wow! Our main waitress, Krista, went so far as to chuckle and offer a reassuring “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” when our toddler smashed a peppershaker all over the tablecloth. In the Olden Days (six or seven years ago), we would have been charged for the damages.

I approached the bar just after we got there to secretly order a round of vodka shots. There was some confusion. Here’s a transcript of the conversation.
“Hi, could I have four shots of vodka for our table?”
Kristiina the bartender: What?
“Four shots of vodka, please.”
—Four what?
“Four shots. Of vodka.”
—What’s that?
“Vodka?”
—No, four what of vodka?
“Shots?”
—What’s that?
“A small glass. For drinking alcohol.”
—Why do you want that?
“Because we want to drink some vodka.”
—Alright, and how should I serve it?
“In shot glasses.”
—What are those?
“How about this—I would like four times four centiliters of vodka.”
—In one glass?
“No, four centiliters of vodka in one glass, then four centiliters of vodka in another glass, and so on. Four shots.”
—Four what?
At this point, I just went through the motions of doing a shot. She understood, and asked once again how many I wanted. I counted one, two, three, four on my fingers, and then pointed at our table. And I swear this is exactly how it happened. It’s not made up for humor’s sake.

A moment later when the shots arrived, she placed two of them in front of Mrs. Mingus-in-law right off the bat. I don’t know why, because I’d never even indicated her in any way. I said, “Actually, just one for her,” and I pointed to whom the other shots were intended. She picked up the two shots she’d already served, put them back on her tray and started to walk off.

“Excuse me, you’re right, please come back. My mistake!” I uttered.

She was visibly angry at me for the confusion. We allowed her to give my mother-in-law the two shots and whomever else she felt deserved a shot. I thanked her, she left, and we redistributed the glasses.

Now I know I have an accent in Estonian, and that it’s frequently the first time an Estonian has ever heard a foreigner (at least non-Russian) speak Estonian, but she shouldn’t have had that much of a problem understanding me. She was also in her early twenties and should have known the word “shot” in English, as she’s a bartender in a hotel full of foreigners.

A couple days later I recounted this harrowing tale of futility to a friend, who explained that the word “shot” doesn’t exist in Estonian. That was the source of the misunderstanding. I should have used a different word for it. Fair enough, except for two points: I’ve used the word “shot” for eleven years, and this was the first misunderstanding; and what I wanted should have been more than obvious to any bartender who can tie their shoes. Kristiina would make a good contestant for that upcoming reality game show called Dancing with Darwin.

But I did like the crème brûlée. The cranberries were an excellent choice of garnish.

The cute part of the evening was our older daughter begging us to dance to the elevator Muzak under the giant disco ball. Luckily there were no other customers.

***

This wasn’t the first strange thing to happen to me at Dorpat. Earlier this year, Mrs. Mingus discovered the spa part of the hotel was offering discounted massages from student masseuses. She went one morning, then demanded that I go that afternoon.

“Was she hot?” I asked.

Mrs. Mingus said she wasn’t bad looking, but not cute enough to be worried about her having her hands all over my body, in a professional setting.

“Good. Sign me up.”

I walked in for a forty-five minute, full-body massage. I was told what room to enter, and as I opened the door I saw some old guy standing there, looking down on me. I’m not an especially tall man, but I’m well above the official average height of Estonians. This guy towered over me. “Are you my masseur?” I asked politely. He nodded. I was sure Mrs. Mingus had played a joke on me. He told me to change. Mrs. Mingus said she’d worn a swimsuit, so I brought my swimming trunks. I’m American, so I cannot go out in public wearing a bikini. Make all the “Americans are prudes” jokes you want, but they don’t apply to me. I just won’t say why.

My masseur said my trunks were unacceptable, and proceeded to pull a tiny, flat plastic bag out of a drawer. Inside was something truly miniscule, something worse than a bikini. It was a disposable male thong. Made of paper. One size fits all. But at least I was man enough not to walk out. He was extremely professional, and I didn’t feel uncomfortable even during the full bum rub I received.

Yet as this was my first professional massage of any type, I had no clue what to expect. When he was finished, he merely quietly slipped out of the room, not saying a word. I assumed I was supposed to get dressed and leave. I couldn’t find anything to dry away the massage oil with, so I got dressed. Then he walked back in, and was visibly shocked to see me fully clothed. It turns out I was supposed to lay back and relax for a few minutes, and he’d brought me a towel for before dressing.

I chatted him up a bit. He was an ex-construction worker. Unemployed from the recession. He really liked working with people and his hands, he explained, so the transition to masseur made perfect sense. A very nice guy overall, and strong construction hands made for a promising new career for him. I would have talked more, but my clothes were all sticking to my skin. I was starting to feel claustrophobic from it, so I thanked him and left.

Later I found out Dorpat’s policy is to mix genders. Meaning no woman should massage a woman, or a man a man. They were oh for two that day.

***

Our clan generally seemed a bit disappointed overall, and I was the only one eating in Dorpat for the first time. They said it was just an off night for the kitchen, and still had positive things to say about their previous pleasant taste experiences. Maybe I’ll give it another try.

McDonald's

Trying to enjoy the company of your family and traditional food at least once a year is a common practice throughout the world. How, why and when this is done are specific to where you are. Most of these family reunion feasts are religious in nature, like Christmas dinner in Estonia—a country full of atheists. In America—a country full of believers—Thanksgiving is a secular and federal holiday.

History offers somewhat foggy versions of how Thanksgiving began in the States. Most agree that the Pilgrims held a big banquet with Native Americans to thank them for teaching them to grow corn and catch eel. Basically, for teaching them how to survive in the New World—a decision I’m sure many of the guests sitting on the ground and not at the table later came to regret. The painting here depicts the first Thanksgiving, revealing an unsettling pattern some of you may recognize. Oddly enough, this work of art is less than a century old.

President Lincoln reestablished the dead tradition of Thanksgiving during the Civil War, but it wasn’t until the Great Depression that it became a federal holiday. This is another pattern—war, economic turmoil and martyrdom seem to be the common denominators under modern holidays. As the decade Time magazine refers to as the “Decade from Hell” draws to a close, can we expect a new federal holiday to appear? National We’re Still a Country Day? And as everything has to be bigger and better than before, will home appliance manufacturers experience a boom in sales of maxi-sized ovens so people can cook whole stuffed ostriches?

Well at least eel is no longer the main dish. Turkey is. A food that most Americans openly admit to disliking. That’s probably why not nearly as many people as you’d think still serve the same recipes they did in the twentieth century. A stuffed turkey is often replaced with turkey curry, and mashed potatoes make way for something Tex-Mex. This is based on what hundreds of American friends on the Internet have said they ate this year.

As a foreigner in Estonia, I follow the Thanksgiving tradition to the letter. Our family places great importance on practicing both of our cultures. Some traditions may be odd and old-fashioned, but our children can make up their own minds about which ones to keep when the day comes.

So how is it to prepare a full Thanksgiving meal in Estonia? I don’t know, because I have nothing to compare it to. I didn’t start cooking turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing and those other tasty delights until I came here. But it tastes authentic, so I must be doing it right. Finding a turkey though is somewhat of a challenge. The largest bird on sale in Tartu is just under eight pounds (three and a half kilos). In North America they average twenty-plus pounds (ten kilos). Another pattern.

Incidentally, turkeys are considered really dumb birds. It’s said they will look up during the rain until they drown, and are really clumsy. There is some truth to this, but it’s most likely just because the birds weren’t supposed to be this monstrously huge when Mother Nature first laid a turkey egg. Or did She make a turkey first?

Of course my highly protected Thanksgiving practices have incorporated some new traditions from Estonia. My mother-in-law brought a bottle of vodka this year, and we did a couple shots while eating and drinking wine. But my favorite newbie is that you cannot buy canned pumpkin purée in Estonia. You have to make it from scratch. And also celebrating Halloween—perhaps even making a bigger deal out of it than is done in the States—means we need a lot of pumpkins. Every year now we go as a family to a local pumpkin farm and buy more than ten of these orange squash. I’m sure I could find a live Gigantor turkey in Estonia too, but I wouldn’t want to make too much of a mess in the bathtub while defeathering it.

Back to talking about practicing both cultures. I instantly fell in love with Christmas dinner in Estonia. It’s important in America as well, and many families do eat turkey again, but there are no real rules about what to eat. Here you eat a pork roast stuffed with garlic, a side of sauerkraut, and my favorite—blood sausage.

The name is not entirely inaccurate, either, but variations in other countries go by different names. Black pudding and blood pudding (even worse name!) are a couple examples. Eaten with something similar to cranberry sauce, bacon and sometimes even sour cream, it’s simply an amazing dish. Luckily nowadays blood sausage is sold everywhere, and all you have to do is shove it in the oven, thus preventing me from cleaning up another red mess.

There’s another food on the table in Estonia, too. Head cheese. Not to be confused with Christmas Brie, it is not a cheese. You take all the meat from a pig that you normally wouldn’t eat—including head meat—and congeal it to form pork Jell-O. Eaten with vinegar and horseradish. Most foreigners won’t touch it, even though it’s delicious. It’s just a bit too foreign I guess. I personally don’t like it, either, but only due to the texture. Meat and jelly together aren’t my idea of a happy taste experience, as Estonian restaurants wish on their customers.

The only thing I can’t get too excited about with the Estonian holiday is the traditional Christmas mandarin. Yes, mandarins are found on almost every table on December twenty-fourth. Why is that, you might ask? Did they really grow citrus fruit in Estonia hundreds of years ago? No. It’s a Soviet thing. Flush all the old Soviet stuff away, including your Zhiguli cars (based in a city called Tolyatti), but let’s keep the mandarins. But that’s how traditions are started, right? Some weird thing happens, everyone forgets about why, but they keep doing it. That’s why people bring trees into their living rooms every year and a hulk of a rabbit hides a basket full of candy and grass in your house. And a winged midget steals your teeth.

What else is on the Estonian Christmas table? Oh yeah, vodka. I do cherish each Christmas meal with the Mingus-in-laws, and we always, always have a great time. Because of the vodka. At the beginning of this post, I mentioned “trying to enjoy the company of your family”. Millions of Americans fly from coast to coast to see people who stress them out. “I’m thankful Thanksgiving is over”, is a common sentence you’ll hear at the office on Monday morning. Guys, do a few shots of vodka at the dinner table! Before you go to bed, you’ll have business plans with your father-in-law. And your mother-in-law will admit that she actually does like the fact that you’re sleeping with her child.

And the now-traditional Christmas Day Hangover is begun with being frenetically shaken awake by possessed children who want to open their Red Ryder BB guns. All I can think of is getting to the coffee pot, but I’m forced to explain why Santa visits us twice on the same night. Like I said, we practice both cultures. Santa stops by after dinner and passes out presents, and then he breaks into your apartment after you go to bed. Presents from the American family, shipped overseas, are opened in the morning. Last year I told my daughter that Kris Kringle forgot his sunglasses, and that’s why he came back (Mrs. Mingus’s dad dresses up as St. Nick every year, but has to don some shades so he’s not recognized).

Now what in Tarnation, as my mother says, does this have to do with McDonald’s in Tartu? I will tell you.

I studied in France for a year in university. Some Americans got together, rented a room in a restaurant, and gave the chef Thanksgiving recipes and canned pumpkin purée for the pie. The chef decided that the idea of a pumpkin pie was unzeenkable, and instead served a zoroughly disgusting pumpkin-and-stinky-cheese casserole. The turkey hadn’t lost its head, either. And a month later an American friend and I ate Christmas dinner at McDonald’s, just to be able to say we’d done it.

But this blog is about restaurant reviews. McDonald’s in Tartu is much better than in America. And I swear to you they will have at least three Kristiinas on the clock at any given time.

Tbilisi

A week ago last Sunday was Father’s Day in Scandinavia. It has different dates around the world, but Estonia celebrates it with Scandinavia. Because Estonia is in Scandinavia. Estonia is also one of the Baltic States. By that logic, so are Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and—technically—Russia. But Latvia and Lithuania, which are no more a part of Scandinavia than Estonia, didn’t celebrate Father’s Day last Sunday. Neither did Denmark, which is odd, seeing as Denmark is actually part of Scandinavia. Even stranger is that the countries themselves decide when to celebrate it.

Regardless, the Mingus family had two and a half members of the Father’s Day Club this year: I am one, Vanaisa (grandfather) Mingus is the other, and Mr. Mingus-in-Law (if you drop the “in-law” part) is the half, as Ms. Mingus-in-Law is expecting. Marriage is waning in popularity in the Baltics. At least in Estonia. The pattern is frequently that a couple, if they decide to get married at all (there is more of a decision made than a proposal), do so when they’re expecting. In the States we call this a “shotgun wedding,” but not because we like guns so insanely, although I’m sure one of the McCoys was rushed to the alter with a muzzle in his back because of certain indiscretions with one of them Hatfield girls. You could hardly describe the Estonian pattern this way, however, because these marriages are usually consummated when they’re expecting their second child. The first one was a trial run, to see if the relationship would work. Perhaps these could be dubbed “miks mitte” marriages (“why not”)?

But I digress.

We went bowling at a mall called Eeden (Eden). It was a lot of fun, teaching my older girl to bowl. The lanes were equipped with rails, so she didn’t get a gutter every time. The funniest thing I noticed was a list of high scores on the wall.

There were at least eight people who had bowled perfect games, with one guy having even bowled more than ten three-hundreds. That’s a big change from when this place opened the better part of a decade ago. Whenever I went bowling back then (maybe once a year), I was always the winner, simply because I had gone bowling before. I’m not good at it. This time I scored lower than almost every other person there, and the lanes were all occupied. No one was smiling though, and not even the teenagers appeared to be having fun. But unlike joggers and cyclists in Estonia, no one was wearing the official uniform. We were still the only ones drinking beer. And the only employee who was smiling, for reasons I don’t wish to fathom, was the shoe guy.

After bowling we had quite an appetite, so we decided to eat some Georgian food together. We’d all been to Gruusia Saatkond (Georgian Embassy) more times than we could remember, and had heard mixed reviews about the new place—Tbilisi—on Küüni Street, in a windowless room on the lowest level of the failed shopping center known as Kaubahall. It almost felt like it was in a former corner casino. In fact, I think it is.

Based on what I’d heard, the cons were that some of the dishes on the menu were rumored to be fresh from a frozen bag. The pros were that the food was alright. Much too often, getting a favorable opinion from Estonians is like herding cats. “Did you like it?” Response either: “No, it was very bad,” or “Yes, it’s very normal.”
“Well then, did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I would go there again.”
“Right, but was the food good?”
“It was normal.”
“Did it have a good taste?”
“It tasted like Georgian food.”
“But is that a good thing?”
“Yes, it’s quite normal, I think.”
“Did you like being there? Was it fun?!”
“We had dinner there.”
“Aaaaarghhhh!”

What was a very surprising turn of events was that the proprietor (I think) came to chat with us, assuring us that anything on the menu could be made in pint-sized portions for the children. Anything you want, come tell Uncle Ivan. I wasn’t sure of his ethnicity, but he spoke Estonian, didn’t look Georgian, but wasn’t quite Russian either. He had a gray ponytail, was very reassuring, and we felt safe. If there had to be a knife fight in the kitchen, you’d want Uncle Ivan on your side.

He told us lots of things that we didn’t need to worry about, as we were in his capable hands. But he wasn’t overbearing, and we didn’t feel uncomfortable. Uncle Ivan was very polite. The service was quick, and Kristjan the waiter smiled and informatively answered any questions we knew to ask. And if he didn’t know (he was new), Uncle Ivan made another appearance.

We didn’t know to ask about sides though, and this bit of rather important information was not volunteered. There are absolutely no side dishes included in the price of a main dish, apart from garnishes. Sides are available for an extra charge, but you have to know to ask.

None of us at the table discussed what we wanted to order, so we ended up with several portions of pork shish-ka-bobs. With no sides. But here’s my opinion: this was the best Georgian shish-ka-bob I’ve ever had. Keep in mind that I’ve eaten Georgian now in only three or four different restaurants, but this was hands-down the best in terms of flavor. We didn’t care much for the desserts, and had no opinion on the sides. The hinkali, a large form of pelmeni, or meat dumpling (also known as Russian ravioli), may have come from a frozen bag, but it was very normal.

The appetizer we collectively ordered, a cheburek (deep-fried mystery meat pastry), was delicious. And on top of that, it was delivered far enough in advance that we could all enjoy it without being distracted by our entrées (as I’ve mentioned before, appetizers in Tartu are frequently delivered with or after the entrée).

The price per ounce though was not particularly cheap for Tartu. Our party had to foot a rather massive bill, and we left not hungry, but not comfortably full either. We were kind of drunk, from the one beer, glass of wine and mug of something I can’t pronounce that we each drank. I wish I’d ordered a side dish.

That mug of unpronounceable liquid was cleared from the table before I’d finished it, while I was in the squeaky clean jaan washing my hands. No problem. Kristjan gave me a full, fresh mug at no charge, plus an apology. An apology in Tartu. Inconceivable! In return I gave him a fat tip that more than compensated for the free refill.

The restaurant itself was brand new, although the interior décor was not very Georgian, at least not compared to its other Tartu competitor. The owners are Georgian and Greek, according to the newspaper, although their web domain ends with .ru for Russia. Maybe Uncle Ivan was one of the owners, and not the manager? But it was clean, everything on the menu was stocked (which is rare), and you had no clue what time it was until you left, due to the lack of windows. Uncle Ivan sat at a nearby table discussing “beezness” with a man whose face was cast in shadow. I suspect they still had slot machines hidden in the kitchen.

I will certainly go to Tbilisi again, armed with my new knowledge of side dishes. And if anyone asks what I thought of it, I will show them two thumbs and say it’s quite normal.

Editing is important. Look through the greenery to see the lamb strangled by a vine, and the spicy chicken served with old tomatoes?

Nobel

After nearly a solid week of low-sleep nights and high-decibel-days due to one of our daughters being sick, the fever broke on Father’s Day morning and we went out to celebrate—at the new Lõunakeskus mall in Tartu. Father’s Day in Estonia is not on the same date as in the States, if you’re wondering.

In terms of mallness, it’s very mally. Which is a compliment, especially for Tartu malls. This is Lõunakeskus 3.0. And like the new Solaris in Tallinn, where P-Funk gave a concert in the cinema (no injuries luckily), I believe that Lõunakeskus 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 will make their debuts within the next twelve months. Lõunakeskus 1.0 was basically a warehouse with flimsy cubicles set up on the floor, each cubicle being a shop. You could throw garments over the walls into the next shop, and then just walk out with it because the radio frequency for the security devices was different at the neighbors’ doors. Then 2.0 appeared, with an ice rink and casino in the basement. And a lawnmower shop. At a mall.

The new 3.0 is very Western, like Tallinn’s Ülemiste and Viru malls. Overall, I like it. It’s still not a two-floor mall. It is technically, but I think a bookshop as the second-floor doesn’t count. In the 2.0 part of Lõunakeskus, I entered the new 2.1 section, which I will call the Financial and Lingerie Department. There are three banks, two insurance branches, a currency exchange and a lingerie shop crammed into the same area. Let’s go to the mall and buy some insurance!

In 3.0, there are two electronics shops right smack next to each other. The security guards will probably give you a hard time if you buy something in one, and then continue shopping in the other. I’ve never understood why local malls group shops the way they do. In Tasku, for example, there are five shoe shops in a row. Americans are rather advanced in sales techniques. You’re exposed to everything whether you want to be or not. You would never see two competing shops side by side. Imagine navigating a monster Las Vegas casino. Then apply that to the parking lot in 3.0. They’ve made it hard for you to leave because they don’t want you to leave. But that, I believe, is true for all roads and such in Europe. Roundabouts galore. To be fair though, I got lost on two separate occasions in American parking lots last year. Labyrinthine curb arrangements coupled with family cars as big as Transformers made it difficult to understand that the roadway going in the general direction of the main street wouldn’t continue that way, and would instead guide you right back to the grand entrance.

Also in American malls, you would never ever see a grocery store. 3.0 has two! The new one is the long-awaited Rimi. Finally as big as a Tallinn Rimi, I have to say it’s, well, no different than the old Rimi in Tartu, except that it’s bigger—oh so much bigger—and it has what appears to be a deli restaurant in the back corner. The product selection is exactly the same, though. I would, however, like to mention what it does not have. It does not have chickpeas, standard fare in several traditional and popular Estonian recipes. What’s so hard about ordering chickpeas? And Cheerios. And Helen brand oatmeal, the number one oatmeal in the country. Tallinn Rimis and every other grocer in Tartu have all three of these products. The baguette mystery has offered yet another clue into the minds of Those Who Control Retail Sales in Tartu. You still can’t get a regular baguette in Tartu. You can only get one smothered in cheese. The bakers don’t know how to not sprinkle cheese on the dough before shoving it in the oven. But they did learn how to sprinkle it with sesame seeds. There is now a variety of “flavored” baguettes in Tartu, but like potato chips, you can’t just get the plain version. Odd…

And now for what they used to have. Rimi used to have Pagaripoisid products, the best bakery in Estonia. Dole salad in a bag, a healthy dinner for twenty kroons. Root beer. Cheddar cheese. When something is popular, you naturally want to stop selling it. That’s why I still shop at Selver. At least they have Cheddar.

What I really like about 3.0 is how it is organized. Except for a couple dead-end hallways, it’s circular. There are even two connecting entrances to 2.0. One of these has two moving sidewalks instead of escalators. Only one was turned on though. After three days of being open, I think it broke. Kind of like when the new Kaubamaja opened, the escalators all broke the first week. I took the stairs, and got that really cool vertigo feeling that only happens when you know you won’t fall, but you also know you shouldn’t be walking where you are. Shouldn’t be because it seems to violate the laws of physics. I think it would be extra cool too if I were, like, a little bit taller and stuff and then walked up these stairs. My center of gravity would be higher than the handrails. Fortunately, Mrs. Mingus found the hidden, unmarked elevator off to the side. She said she could barely fit in there because of the baby stroller.

So at the top of the stairs is a book shop, some sort of shop that was closed but had a remote-controlled car racetrack visible through the window (how fun would that be?!) and the Nobel Café. I personally would have switched the places of the bookshop and café. The bookshop is surrounded by windows, and the café is shoved into a corner with no natural light. It looks cozy, if not a tad claustrophobic. We sat at one of the two tables that offered a view of the ice rink. Next to the automatic piano.



The piano is entertaining. One kid’s dad told him there was an invisible man playing. The little boy waved his hand over the empty bench just to be sure. The music selection is not entertaining. First it played the happy birthday song. Then a popular children’s lullaby, next an unknown song, followed by the Wedding March and Auld Lang Syne. I so desperately wanted the piano to complete the cycle of life with Amazing Grace, but techno from the ice rink suddenly drowned it out.

I went to order at the café’s bar. The sign showed a twenty-minute wait for the food, which I found a bit long but still acceptable. We were hungry. I ordered coffee, a pastry, and scrambled eggs for the kids. “You know, the wait will be about forty minutes,” Kristiina the waitress said.
“Why?” I replied. “There’s no one else here.”
“That’s just how long it will take.”
“What about bruschetta?”
“The same.” There was a semblance of Monty Python in her tone when she said that.
“Why? Just toast some bread and plop on a spoonful of pesto.”
“I’m sorry,” she frowned. “Forty minutes.”
She clearly didn’t want us to eat anything.
“Nevermind then. Two cranberry juices for my kids, please.”
“We’re out of cranberry juice,” she stated matter-of-factly.
There were only four juices on the menu, and they’d only been open for three days. I could see where this was going, so I gave up and asked what they did have. “Multinectar.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“Could I have two multinectars, please?”
“Here you go.”
“And two straws, too.” The straws were not on the counter, but far away, by the flavored syrups.
“Two what?”
“Straws.”
She seemed confused that I would need straws for young children to drink juice with, but she exhaled loudly and gave me two straws.
“OK, and can I get that free small Father’s Day muffin you offer with an order of coffee?” I’d seen some truly small muffins in a basket, chocolate I suspected.
“Oh right, here it is.” She pulled out a different basket with even smaller muffins. Seriously, this thing was the size of my thumb. I didn’t know there were muffin tins that miniature. It looked like a chanterelle. I tried to take a photo but the children had wolfed it down before I could bring the rest of our order to the table (it’s a semi-self-serve café). I forgot to add milk to Mrs. Mingus’s coffee, so I went back to the counter yet again. Another customer had since taken the little milk jug to her own table, forgetting to return it. I asked Kristiina for milk. She pointed to the table and said, “Just go get it from her.” She was too busy counting muffins for her inventory.

* * *

In the parking lot, I counted eight handicapped spaces in a row. In the farthest row from the door.

Moka

Back in the nineties, there were four main places to get pizza. Taverna, Pizza Opera, Pizza Pronto and Reinu. Unfortunately, Reinu does not have a restaurant, as far as I know, so I will never be able to write about how thoroughly disgusting I find their pizza. Who uses Whiskas® as a topping? In fact, the only good thing that I can remember about that company was that they could deliver cases of beer at four in the morning to your apartment doorstep.

Pizza Pronto, on the other hand, had a pizza dough machine. It looked like a candy dispenser. It was thin crust—I’m a deep-dish man myself—and thick with taste. Forty kroons for a daily special wasn’t bad, so long as you didn’t actually order the daily special. I did once, without looking on the chalkboard by the register, and was surprised to get egg, pickle, onion and corn on a pizza.



Two remakes and ten years later, Moka occupies the same premises, kitty-corner from the university’s main building (next to Volga). They still have the same pizza machine, popping out the same pizzas, and I would imagine the owner is still the same as well. The restaurant has, however, changed dramatically. The bar resembles a pâtisserie, and the menu looks like something that should be in an upscale Manhattan diner instead of this rather unassuming eatery. The only thing that gives it away is the prices. They’re dirt cheap for what you get.

After growing tired of the pizzas, I was completely unaware of the changes on the inside. A friend said the chef had repeatedly prepared what he called the best Chicken Kiev he’d ever had, and what’s more—if the same chef was at work when you went, and they weren’t packed, he was absolutely willing to prepare anything you wanted, from the menu or not. This hints at a chef in Tartu who enjoys his job. I know from inside accounts and personal experience that this isn’t a common thing. But my friend, whom I’ll refer to as Jaan, always says everything is the best he’s ever had. That’s why I waited a couple years before trying Moka.

A couple weekends ago, we had some visitors—the same who experienced Suudlevad Tudengid (Kissing Students) with us for my review. We visited Moka on a gloomy October Sunday afternoon. To our surprise, Moka was celebrating the cuisines of different countries each weekend. That weekend was American cuisine. I just wanted a salad, but I couldn’t resist the steak and brownies.

Other upcoming weekends on the menu were Belgium, Ukraine and Switzerland—not exactly places known for their food. That wasn’t what caught my attention on the menu though. First of all, the Estonian says, “National Cuisine Weekends.” The English below it says, “Multi-Cuisine Weekends.” What multi are you? I’m American. And what do you do? I’m a chef fe cuisine.

Dee and eff may be companions on the qwerty—an understandable typo—but if you’re going to print out an attractive menu like this, especially as it’s just an insert and not the whole thing, wouldn’t you at least look at it once before sending it to the publishers? This is like if I wrote my name as Toomas Hendrik Lives (I am, after all, the one true Present of Estonia). Fortunately, as I found out when the food arrived, the chef de cuisine, Andrus Vaht, pays much more attention to what he sends out of the kitchen. And if it wasn’t the head chef working at one on a Sunday, that says even more about him as the leader of his kitchen. Rumor has it he even converses with customers. The waitress did happen to point him out as he was walking by…he looked at our baby carriage and smiled. When does that ever happen in Tartu?!

The presentation of the food was something deserving of at least a couple Michelins, probably all three due to the price. It was almost absurd, to be perfectly honest. I felt guilty about eating my entrecôte, whatever that is. Usually in Estonia it’s something similar to a rib-eye, but not this one. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed every bite—but it was far from the best steak I’ve ever had. It was full of tendons, or something else, as I couldn’t be sure what cut it was. I’d also specifically asked for it medium-rare, and Kristiina—our waitress—even repeated it too me. I think the chef got the message too, but as I was evidently served a budget cut it just wasn’t possible to do anything bloodier than very well done.

The mashed yams, or sweet potatoes, were the best I’ve ever had in my life. To add weight to that statement, I hate yams. I think they’re disgusting. I rank them right up there with green eggs. To clarify that statement, I really did love the yams. I could eat them here or there, I could eat them anywhere! I don’t know what the chef did, but it was simply delish! It’s a true pity that it was a one-off menu item. I would go there every month if he brought it back. I hope you’re reading this, Andrus. You are one Estonian chef who could teach a thing or two to American chefs. At least about yams.

Now for the rest of the food items, they were very good. I cannot say they were better than very good. It wasn’t quite on par with the presentation. But for the price, I would never complain, and I would recommend it to others. I already have, in fact, and I guess I am with this review. Keep in mind though, they do have stuff in the twenty-dollar range as well.



I got the American dessert—the brownies, as mentioned. It was a bit dry and full of nuts. I think a lot of Estonian desserts are a bit dry for the Yankee palate, but that’s not a bad thing, I think we could all agree. The four kids who were with us shared a single dish of ice cream. They ate their fill and we finished off the rest. Think about that: four children couldn’t eat all the ice cream in one helping.

Too bad I didn’t discover Moka during the summer. Küütri Street was redone a year or two ago, and it’s a very attractive outdoor setting. On a side note, why is there a blanked-out space on Küütri if you zoom in via Google Maps?

Mrs. Mingus-in-law tends to be rather picky and is prone to routine. And that’s fine and dandy. She’s over …-ty years old. She lunches in Moka at least once a week. That may or may not be a compliment to Moka, but I intend it as such. If only more people took pride in their jobs. Passion, I dare say.

Ungari Köök

At eleven o’clock on a Monday morning, in a Selver grocery store parking lot a couple kilometers from downtown Tartu on Sõbra Street, a metal security door raises and reveals a cozy enclave that specializes in two things: soups, and lángos. A lán—what? The closest thing to a lángos in the States is an elephant ear at the state fair: a deep-fried nightmare for your arteries. But this thing, this thing is a masterful concoction of deep-fried goodness and healthy toppings to counteract the trans fats of fried Hungarian flat bread. The eggplant and beef with mushrooms are my favorites.



There are other, slightly simpler toppings as well, that are sure to surprise you. The owner and chef can do wonders with a basic spread of sour cream and Estonia’s ill-named Athlete’s Cheese. Actually he uses an imported German cheese now. He says it’s cheaper, better and easier to grate. Rumor has it that for all of Estonia’s cheeses and cheese “producers,” they’re all made in the same cheese machine. I’ve heard the same about potato chips in the States.

When Ungari Köök opened a couple years ago, only this lángos was offered. A Hungarian specialty. The Hungarian owner is happy to chat about it with you in Estonian or English. People kept asking him why he didn’t sell meat burgers and fries, not masking their disappointment upon learning that they would either have to try something new—heaven forbid!—or rudely walk out. It turns out the customers did in fact like it, so he quickly expanded to soups. I remember the beginning of that change—one soup, sold out within minutes. Now there are three soup containers or boilers or vats or whatever they’re called (the thing in the photo) every day, with the daily special printed on the front door. There are customers who eat there every day, all year. He also makes his own bread quite often.

I went in five minutes before opening today so I could ask questions about his story, but within four minutes of the metal door going up, there was already a line of three people. Between customers he was able to give me a sentence or two, so I think I’ve been able to piece together the story of the Hungarian Kitchen. It makes me a little angry.

See, there are only two things I don’t like about Ungari Köök. One is the location, and the other is the selection of food. It’s not enough! This is good cuisine, and the guy has proven his culinary abilities. I want more.

As a newcomer to Estonia, there are few options available for work (I’m not talking about students). Something involving language teaching, and food. That’s usually it. The owner of Ungari Köök for example has a degree in art history. What’s he doing making soup? He was able to rent a few parking spots at the grocery store, build a small structure that is up to code for the health inspectors, and sell the food that he knows best—his national cuisine. He loves doing this, as he says, “I don’t want to get rich, I just want to be happy and make good food. That’s why I don’t raise prices.”

The soups are sold out by two at the latest, every day. It’s that good, it’s that popular. And what’s funny is that people can tell the difference between the soups he makes and those of his staff. He wants to expand now, but is having serious troubles. Expansion involves a larger kitchen obviously, which in turn requires a new location—downtown. That’s fantastic for people who aren’t able to drive to the current place. It also opens up the tourist market. Let’s face it—tourists in Tartu all eat foreign cuisine. There’s only one real “Estonian” restaurant (aptly called “Estonian Restaurant”) and the rest is Italian, Georgian, Turkish and Chinese. I’m just talking about the authentic stuff. Everything else is themed.

The Hungarian doesn’t want a traditional “restaurant” though. From what I understand, he wants to be sort of a cross between a restauranteur and a street vendor. There just isn’t that much of a selection downtown that would meet those criteria. He’s considered building again. The City Government is more or less doing anything they can to prevent it. One location, on the “wrong” side of the river and by the Narva Street dorms, doesn’t have anything there. It’s a park in fact, that in its current form exists mainly to frighten lone women walking by at night. “We don’t want anything built there,” says one city official. An official who works for a city that is hell-bent on telling everyone how much it was wronged in the past century, but that would never do anything to fix the situation. Looking at old photos of that same park, you can see tons of buildings, cafés and restaurants. A center of life in Tartu. And this is just one of the hurdles and tripping stones the Tartu City Government lines its streets with.

The owner of Alvi Kebob has a similar story. He wanted to buy an old putka (not the Bulgarian vulgarian meaning, but a food kiosk) to open up a kebob place. Before paying, he talked to the city government, who promptly gave a resounding “No!” because they “don’t want a putka culture in Viljandi.” Well then, what kind of culture do they want?

Viljandi is the self-described cultural capital of Estonia. That would mean they just want Estonian culture then, right? The only food I’ve ever been able to find in Viljandi is from Soviet söökla culture. Shredded cabbage and carrot salads, fried pork in thick, white flour sauce that they call Béchamel, and two-kroon condiments. That means you have to pay more if you want ketchup on your fries or sugar in your coffee. Modern culture, around the world, is a healthy blend of different national cuisines. I think what’s really needed is for people to look toward the future, not try to recreate a past that no one can agree on in the first place.

Or maybe this argument would work: Tallinn has a putka culture, and right across the street from the Old Town, at Balti Jaam (Baltic Train Station). Why not you? There was interest in Tartu putkas banding together to build a putka house—a single structure, like a mall food court, in one of the empty downtown parks. Then some ridiculous rules appeared, something like, “only if you paint it pink.” Basically it just wasn’t going to be allowed. Despite Estonia being a free market economy on paper, there are still strong elements of a planned economy.

The way I see it, if you’re shy then there’s no better way to say you don’t want foreigners than to hide behind the guise of health and cultural protection. So many people have tried to open restaurants (foreigners and Estonians alike, I’ll admit). There are so many restrictions and requirements from the Health Inspectorate that it’s often impossible. And let’s be honest—the Health Inspectorate serves the same function as the Consumer Protection Board. It’s consumer protection. Only consumer protection doesn’t exist in Estonia. Look at the laws: if it’s broken or defective, you can’t get your money back. The shop just has to repair or replace it. I know from several, several first-hand experiences that even that isn’t enforced. The city governments just don’t want to move forward, and they’re counting on their constituents—who just might in fact want to move forward—to demand not a thing. A city’s cuisine is a direct reflection of the city itself.

I’d like to see a list of grandfather clauses in force for Tartu’s restaurants. There are some real holes that would not be allowed to open today. Like how old Moskvitches are still allowed to drive, despite today’s stricter emissions laws. I think there are no grandfather clauses in the food industry. Just some pasty white guy behind a brand-new flat-screen computer monitor trying to make everyone else suffer for his lack of vision.

Here’s the cheesy part of this review: I consider myself a Tartu patriot (I could never live in Tallinn, for example), and what I want is for a tolerant, multicultural Tartu. Multicultural only in that if you want some variety from time to time, you can get it. I just want a choice—I don’t want to force people to live among people they are too scared of. So I choose to eat goulash and lángos and kebobs and sushi and I probably single-handedly support the import of Mexican food products in Tartu’s grocery stores (meaning just Santa Maria tortillas and chilies). And I think I’m not alone. I’m sure delicious food isn’t the only reason all these people are starting to eat at Ungari Köök.

Black Pepper Grill

Having joined the ranks of people with back problems, the day came when it was time to replace our old mattress that we got in January with an expensive plank of wood. Off to Tartu Mööblimaja, or Tartu Furniture House, on Sõbra Street. Actually you turn off Sõbra and go down the road a bit...apparently the new road doesn't have a name of its own yet. In an old Soviet-era warehouse or factory building—can’t tell which—that was fixed up last year, there are several home decorating shops that more or less sell the same things with astonishing price differences due to how close they are to the door. (Two blocks away is another home decorating “mall” called E-Kaubamaja, or E-Department Store, again selling the same stuff.)

In the first shop you can enter, there is a chair that is also for sale in the last shop, at the very back of the building. The price difference is over a thousand kroons. The second shop you see is home to a small table I photographed for City of Good Thoughts that cost almost three thousand kroons (the exact same table was on sale in Ikea for somewhere around five percent of the Tartu price). That shop is now roped off, closed to business, although all the goods are still on display, complete with an old man who was playing solitaire on the store’s computer.

Mrs. Mingus was better at navigating the rows upon rows of seemingly identical mattresses, so I perused the selection in Expert, the home electronics store. It seems kind of small to be honest, and I remember comparing all such stores to the maxi mega monster Circuit City’s and Best Buys of the States, but last year when I paid more attention, the selection—while a bit better—wasn’t that much better. Prices of course were fractions of what they are here, and the goods were slightly more modern (as in six months, not more), but the main difference between Tartu Mööblimaja and the equivalent in the States is the choice of food. Usually, on the Western edge of the Atlantic, there is a Subway and maybe a teriyaki grill (I’m not talking about malls with food courts). Here, there’s usually nothing. And if there is, it’s a söökla, or cafeteria, primarily for the employees. At the furniture place, there’s the Black Pepper Grill, or grill „Black Pepper“, as the sign implies (or even Pepper Grill, as the website implies).

The name conjures up images of an American-style family restaurant with a kids’ menu, a selection of honey-glazed baby back ribs and a Wurlitzer in the corner. While it’s not quite that, the name—and cafeteria itself—are a step above your typical joint called Tiina or Linda, which simply advertise that they serve “hot food” and offer a broad selection of potatoes smothered in potato seasoning.

One thing that really irks me about these cafeterias is that they weigh everything, and that takes time. You generally pay by hundred-gram increments, so if you have salad, sides and soup, the cashier takes an identical plate, weighs it, takes the plate off the scale, takes your plate with the same hands that handle cash and places it on the scale, subtracts the weight of the empty plate, enters it in the computer, then hands the plate back to you instead of putting it back on your tray. They never seem to remember how much their dishes weigh. The process is repeated for the sides and soup. I’ve even been to places that have a fixed weight for the food—you tell the cafeteria worker what you want, they serve it for you, weigh an empty plate, weigh your plate, skim off a couple grains of rice, weigh it again, skim off another grain of rice, weigh it again, and then serve it to you.

Not the Black Pepper Grill. You pay by the plate, and you can put as much or as little as you want, all for the same price. They even advertise it, too, because they know this is unusual for Tartu. You can’t do this with the meat of course, but still. I was in and out of that line in record time. And there was not a single Santa Maria label to be seen anywhere—my potatoes had real rosemary, and they took extra time to garnish them with—can you guess? The potatoes weren’t peeled, either.

The dished named after the restaurant—the Black Pepper skewer—was not a spicy hot chunk of beef that only the strong of tongue, the man of the family, can handle. It was just a regular pork shish kebob, slightly blackened. It was decent, as was the price—but at Kalevi Köök (Kalev’s Kitchen, a pretty good hole in the wall that I will try to review soon) you get almost three times as much meat for just a little more money. The only food I didn’t care for much was the over-steamed frozen veggies. Mrs. Mingus took the “over-baked” pork with cheese. It tasted just like the Caribica pizza at Taverna, on Town Hall Square (that’s a good thing).

When I reached for the skewer, I had no idea that the heating lamp was so low. In fact I just assumed that the food was kept warm from underneath, given that the plates were also pre-warmed—a one-of-a-kind service in a Tartu cafeteria. I burned my forearm a bit, and the cashier—probably named Kristiina, I don’t know—just continued to stare at me as if nothing had happened. She didn’t even raise an eyebrow, much less ask if I was fine. She wasn’t heartless though, because immediately when we sat down, she joined her young son at another table and helped him color a picture.

Our kids were with us as well, and our almost-two-year-old of course made a mess of her face. We decided it was easier to clean her up at home rather than walk the couple hundred meters to the jaans, at the far back corner of the shopping center. But on the way out, I noticed something odd: the parking lot was almost completely empty, but the street curbs were packed with cars. It probably seemed easier to parallel park in an unmarked area than use a real parking lot and walk an extra twenty seconds. The parking lot is unregulated. It’s free and no one will care if you leave your car there overnight.

In general I like the whole area. Old, broken asphalt and dirt roads, asbestos-lined sheet metal sheds and grassy fields littered with refuse and trodden paths for homeless people to access the river for food—this is what it was. Now there’s a grocery store, a delicious Hungarian place, a normal parking lot or two (one is even multi-level), a shiny, black glass building that doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous like the apartment blocks across the street (it’s pretty nice actually), and a lot more room left around it for development, especially out towards the river. The only thing on these banks of the Emajõgi River is a failed realty project, something that slightly resembles a Rubik’s Cube. The project originally included five identical buildings. One was finished, with just a few flats sold. I wonder how the rest of the area will be developed when the economy recovers.

And while the Black Pepper Grill is, as I said, a step up from Tiina or Linda, it’s just not quite enough to induce me to revisit this part of the city. Maybe I’ll go back if I need a new mattress for my back? Maybe I can find something else in the grocery store parking lot?