Vabaduse Kohvik

Tartu and the rest of Estonia are participants in the dawning of a new age—one of genetic engineering, one of private spaceflight, one of calling the secret police if your neighbor has suspiciously large quantities of fertilizer stored in a truck behind the garage. Well, perhaps Tartu isn’t a participant in all of those. Tartu’s gene bank, the one that was supposed to map the whole population and be Estonia’s Nokia—that kind of got dubiously privatized and then drawn and quartered. Tartu just reopened its commercial airport last year, and hopefully it will be possible to fly outside Europe non-stop from Tartu in the near future. I won’t hold my breath on rocketry though. And fertilizer? People aren’t in the habit of calling the cops if they see street brawls. But there are, however, elements of Tartu society that are joining the rest of the developed world in collectively screaming out, “What the fuck have we been eating?!”

I recently defended the modern food industry’s use of chemicals and hormones and all sorts of good things that the human body wasn’t designed to withstand. Then I watched a film that has caused me to reconsider my beliefs. Reconsider, mind you—not change. The wheels of processed cheese are still spinning on that one. To sum up what I said, our global population has reached a point where we are dependent upon industrialized food. It simply is not possible for us all to suddenly switch to organic farming. I suggested instead that we pour more funding into agricultural research to make better, safer chemicals.

Also recently, I was wandering about in the Estonian countryside on a Saturday and happened across a laat, or fair. A country fair. Not with Ferris wheels and petting zoos—I don’t think many children would want to touch some of the animals I saw—but a fair amount of homemade ware, goods and foods. A lot of it was organic. To be more specific, a lot of it was organic bacon, ham, white-flour pastries, sausages and other foods that make your heart go boom, and then stop.

It was similar to American country fairs in many respects. You park in a grassy field, walk a bit, snicker at all the people walking around topless or in bikinis (who may indeed have looked good forty years prior) and pass by endless booths of merchants, while looking for something good to eat. And when you find that food, you curse yourself for buying it, knowing that it is probably not really that good—or good for you. But hey, it’s the fair, right? Live a little.



On a side note, table after table offered things you would never really need, but they were so neatly packaged it was hard to resist. Personalized pottery, woven shoes, locally imported Bugs Bunny balloons, and so on. One man was kind enough to pose for my camera after Little Mingus wanted to talk to Santa Claus. See his picture in the next picture?

Fresh fish as well. Freshly dried or smoked, but still good. I remember a few years ago catching a man on our land. His car was parked by the river, and as we walked by we saw several car batteries and several hundred meters of electric cable in his trunk. Then the man emerged from the bushes, carrying two buckets chock full of pike perch. No way he could have caught all that the traditional way, and no way he had a license, either. Were these fair fish caught the same way?

Then Mrs. Mingus elbowed me. “Stop staring!” she hissed in my ear, apparently angry because I was looking at almost every woman walking by. And it’s true—I was. For weeks now I’ve been asking where the Estonians were. I don’t hear them on the streets of Tallinn, I don’t hear them at concerts. Well, here at the fair, I found them. And they were huge! Not fat, but just huge! That’s why I was staring. And not just at the women.

Now, I don’t consider myself a tall man. I’m a bit taller than the official average, but not much. Here in Southern Estonia, I was not much taller than any of the women I saw. I looked up at any male over fifteen. And the calf muscles! Even on the women, they were simply pure muscle. Of course the physical condition of a person depends on their lifestyle—manual farm labor versus a desk job in the city—but the foundation for their body depends directly on what they grew up eating. These people had grown up drinking fresh, whole milk, eating organic foods. And as I said, they were very tall. And there were a few city girls at the fair as well. They were easy to pick out. The ones who had grown up on industrialized, processed foods. They looked anorexic compared to the country girls. In fact, I think a couple of them were.

So what would happen if all of Estonia suddenly went organic—assuming that possibility existed? Would we really be healthier? Would our life spans increase, stay the same, or decrease? A few random facts and statistics enter my mind. There was a sudden spike in average height once food began to be industrialized. When country people started having better access to fish. Also, in Estonia at least, there is an equation that links life expectancy to hospital proximity—the farther you live from the nearest hospital, the shorter your life.

As Estonia integrates with the West in every facet of life, will this country too become an irreversible slave to the food industry, as depicted in the film I mentioned? The director hinted that the whole system depends on cheaper, faster. “Faster” results from technology, but “cheaper” is due to labor. A lot of America’s food industry uses illegal labor on the individual farms indebted so much they have no choice but to obey their corporate masters. Illegal labor means cheap. They have no rights. A lot of people and companies publicly don’t want them there, but the people don’t know how dependent America is upon them. The corporations do, however. In public, they lobby against granting them rights, stirring up patriotic nonsense that makes them look, well, patriotic. But behind the scenes, their success is made possible by cheap labor.

And Estonia most certainly does have an “underclass” of non-citizens here. They speak Russian. They give us electricity. Officially, these people choose not to try for Estonian citizenship out of patriotic duty, but they also don’t want to go back to what they consider “home”. Now, I’m not going to try to tackle the whole “Russian question” here—I’m just pointing out a similarity between America and Estonia, and suggesting that there may be a link between the quality of the products we consume and the social rights we grant our producers.

Study after study is revealing how dangerous the chemicals we eat really are. Diabetes, cancer, attention deficit disorder—will Generation X be the first generation in modern history to experience a decline in life expectancy? Can the pharmaceutical industry keep up with the agricultural industry? We’re all becoming concerned about what we’ve been eating. But I don’t see many alternatives. I liken it to drinking your own piss on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.

Here at the fair, I walked by the stage in a truck and the hoards of people dancing and found a kebob stand, also in a truck. The company (Freedom Café) is based in Valga, but I saw only processed foods on sale. All the tables set up in front of it were full, whereas the organic bacon and sausage grills had few customers. Is Estonia’s countryside preparing to experience a huge decline in height? It will take a couple generations to answer that question. That’s time we can ill afford to wait before making any changes.

Little Mingus pointed and asked, “Daddy, what’s that?” —I’m not really sure, honey. And I wasn’t. I think it was a cow of some sort. Maybe a comic book superhero for barnyard animals. I know for a fact that the local cattle farm feeds its cattle organically, as the animals often graze in the fallow fields across the river. Most Estonian livestock eats organically, but what about the hormone and antibiotic injections they receive? I’d never seen this thing before, though. I sincerely hope it wasn’t the same thing I grilled the week before.

Statoil

Sometimes, in the course of a human life, it is necessary to get thoroughly tanked and rock out. Few venues offer the possibility to do both with as much furor and vigor as Metallica—live in concert. While I would not refer to myself as an especially avid fan of this band, I will say that their live performances exude an energy rarely equaled in our mundane, everyday lives.

After traipsing around the Old Town of Tallinn for a few days, methodically embarrassing myself in a fine restaurant called Chakra, spending nights in a moving hotel and religiously watching flight updates due to the ashen disturbances of a certain unpronounceable volcano in a far-off, bankrupt country (but whose people are very nice!), it was finally time to make our way to the site of what is arguably Estonia’s greatest moment of international fame—hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. Of course I’m talking about the Saku Suurhall, the indoor concert venue. The Song Contest was hosted in this country thanks to one Dave Benton and another Tanel Padar having won the previous year’s competition by singing a rather unlikely duet. But the tune was catchy. Come On Everybody? Is that what they sang?

We arrived in the parking lot of the Saku Suurhall and waited for friends, a full hour before the warm-up acts were to take the stage. It had been a few hours since we’d eaten at Chakra, so we went to Statoil—the Norwegian-owned gas station chain. There was quite a line for the jaan, as most everyone was already drunk. Half the cars in the parking lot had small crowds of people standing and drinking beer, each time bending over to take a sip so the beat cops wouldn’t see them consuming in public.

I ordered a hot dog. The bun was a tube. They offered mayonnaise. I declined. Ketchup, please. It tasted surprisingly like a hot dog. I’ll eat one again in the future. This concludes the restaurant portion of our broadcast.

Originally Metallica was to give two concerts in Riga, Latvia. Due to poor ticket sales, one of the shows was moved to Tallinn. This is either because of the economy or the staggeringly expensive tickets, mostly priced at one thousand five hundred kroons. Personally, I think both were responsible, but I could be wrong. And still neither show was sold out. Throughout the entire performance, there were large swathes of seats left completely empty. The band could see this as well.

One thing I would like to point out regarding the tickets and seats: it is possible to choose seats for the movies, buses, trains and so on. These tickets are a fraction of the cost of Metallica. But seats at Metallica could not be chosen. Where you wanted to sit just wasn’t an option. There were sections, of course—standing room, assigned seating and a restaurant? With a wait staff? “Excuse me, Krista. Could you bring me another beer before Enter Sandman? And a bowl of onion soup, too. Thanks!” We got lucky. Third row and on the aisle. The aisles were kept clear by very large, bald bouncers, one of whom actually instructed me that I would have to remain seated for the entire performance.

Hoards of people standing outside gave the impression the line was long, but in fact very few were actually waiting in line, and we were inside within two minutes. Most of the men were getting patted down, but the bouncer took one look at me and just let me in. I guess he recognized me. But what were all those people doing outside? Selling tickets. It’s common. It’s called scalping. These scalpers were selling heavily discounted tickets. Five hundred kroons for most of them. I guess a lot of people had planned on flying to Tallinn to see Metallica. One of my friends missed the show for that very reason. Whereas most of the Estonians I know who wanted to see the show were stuck with tickets to the Latvia concert.

The building itself was quite nice. A coat check was the first thing I noticed, and there were several food vendors. I wish I hadn’t rushed to Statoil. The jaans were a bit few and far between for such a large place, and if you found one it could only accommodate four people at a time. The walls of the jaans were built at an angle, causing understandable confusion for concertgoers who had consumed copious amounts of brew. As expected, the stall was eventually rendered useless. The cleaning ladies apparently weren’t on duty.

After the warm-up bands, I couldn’t help but notice that the music played in the meantime was just amazing. It always is at big-name concerts. If only that music was from a radio station. I would listen to that station, and that station alone. Then the lights dimmed, and a recording of Metallica playing music blasted through the speakers while Metallica themselves made their way to the stage to start playing music. Of course the concert rocked out. It was amazing. It always is. It is Metallica.

At one point, during a slow song I don’t particularly care for, I stepped out to the section where tobacco products are consumed, and saw none other than Tanel Padar. Twice in two days! Four years ago, when Metallica sold out the Song Festival Grounds (upwards of eighty thousand tickets), Tanel Padar was the opening act. He hadn’t been invited to reprise that role. I wonder if he had been forced to purchase a ticket to this performance.

The thing about Tanel Padar and the Sun (his band) is that while they are very talented musicians—anyone who can play guitar, in my book, is talented—I find their music boring. The melodies are completely lackluster and I feel not a drop of the energy I pick up from most other bands. But that’s just my opinion, so while you can disagree, you can’t say I’m wrong. Because it’s an opinion. Opinions can’t be wrong, by definition.

And then he spoke to the small crowd surrounding him.
“Do you have a pencil?” Everyone laughed hysterically.
“That’s not a pencil.” More laughter.
“Is this a pencil?” I think I saw tears in one man’s eyes.
“I need a pencil.” Comic pandemonium erupted.
“Do I need a pencil?” Mr. Padar continued his erudite observations of literary tools.
“Where is a pencil?” At this point I just went back inside.

In the States, it’s often considered bad form to wear the T-shirt of the band you’re going to see. It’s the opposite here. I’d never seen so much Metallica attire in one place. And again, I didn’t hear any Estonian. Most of the people I happened to see and hear were Finns. There was one middle-aged man sitting across the aisle from me who sat up straight as an arrow and did not move for the entire concert. His facial expression did not change. His button-up shirt said “Suomi” on the back. Where are the Estonians?

On the way back to the Hotel Vertigo our designated drivers were not familiar with the streets of Tallinn. My partner-in-law gave directions. At one point he told us to turn right. From the back seat, he couldn’t see that the right turn lane was for buses only. Both of our cars turned, and a police patrol car saw it. They started following us, but didn’t flash their lights. As we were already at the hotel, we turned into the parking lot and stopped. The officers got out, approached us, and asked for identification and registration.

Neither of the drivers was Estonian, and neither were the cars’ owners. The cops never even said what we’d done wrong. It was obvious we’d made a harmless, honest mistake, and they returned our cards and told us to have a good night, in English, and with a smile.

A week after arriving back in Tartu, I received a warning in the mail from the police. But that was because I sped past one of the new droid cameras on the highway. See, we were hungry, and we were anxious to get a Statoil hot dog.

Chakra

Visiting Tallinn inevitably involves a lot of walking. That’s a good thing, I think. The entire city is linked by an intricate public transit system, and if you ask a local how to get from point a to point b, they will probably tell you to take a troll. A troll? Yes, the big ugly monsters from fantasy literature. I guess they mean “trolley” but as there are three main forms of transportation, it’s not quite certain which is which in English. There are “trams”—small trains that travel on tracks—buses and electric buses connected to an overhead network of electrical cables. One of those is the troll.

In the Old Town, however, you are limited to the private options: various forms of rental (Segways and bicycle rickshaws, for example) and of course the foot. And the foot gets tired. I must say, though, how surprised I was at the amount of car traffic in the Old Town. And especially the speed at which said traffic traveled. Several times I had to jump out of the way of an unseen Audi heard around the corner of a winding, labyrinthine street. There are no traffic mirrors anywhere. One guy came speeding up the street at close to highway speeds, slammed on the brakes, turned up one passage, stopped, drove blindly in reverse, turned the car around, and sped as quickly as possible back down Väike-Karja Street (and narrowly missing an approaching car), only to park and wait a full half minute before slowly getting out and meandering over to a shop called Raw. The kids stayed in the car.

On a side note, after having visited Tallinn several times a year over the last decade, never—not once—have I heard Estonian spoken by anyone walking. I know the population is roughly fifty-fifty Estonian, but they just seem terribly underrepresented on the street. This is something I noticed in the nineties, and for me at least, it is still valid today. I’ve also never noticed a sign that says, “Estonian cuisine” or anything similar, referring of course to a place to eat. The gift shop windows are full of matryoshka dolls and sculptures of Fat Margaret and Tall Hermann, the bars are Irish or English-themed (one doesn’t even have a name!), and all manner of cuisine can be found with a little patience and luck, but I have yet to see a restaurant called Kartul. Or maybe there is one. Yeah, I think there is.

Farners and Estonians alike joke about local, traditional cuisine, and I have to admit there are quite a few stinkers out there, but I have eaten at “Estonian” restaurants that serve high-quality Estonian food, and I have to say it’s delicious. What a passionate Estonian chef can do with grain, pork, mushrooms and dairy is simply amazing, so long as said chef leaves out the snooty influences of various red-wine braises and blue cheese marinades—things with no historical roots here. Stick to things that are primarily made of roots.

That said, our feet were tired and we happened across a place called Chakra—look up the definition as I won’t try to explain it here, except that it loosely means energy nodes in the body. Indian food. I’m not that familiar with Indian as I’m not from England, but most of what I’ve had has been very tasty, very different. The combinations of flavor can be fantastic—star anise, cumin, turmeric, cilantro—and I love heat in food (temperature and spice-wise). I try to avoid the use of the term “ethnic” though when describing foreign cuisines as I can’t imagine hippies in India smoking weed and eating burgers.

It was an early Sunday afternoon, and there were only two other tables occupied in the entire restaurant on Bremeni käik in the Old Town. The service was top-notch—that is to say, what it should be. Our waitress—Krista—was quick, attentive, polite, clean and informative. If she didn’t know something, she apologized and went to ask. Our party of four quickly discovered we’d all chosen the same menu item (roasted Tandoori chicken), so I forced them to select again so we could all sample greater variety.

The naan was especially good. We polished off the garlic naan almost immediately and ordered more—this time with onion. The sauces were absolutely delicious. The mint was the favorite of the table. I am unable to say if this food was high quality, because I admit I do not have much experience with this cuisine, but we were all extremely pleased with Chakra. The only (only!) thing that was less than perfect was the amount of rice served us. One platter for the table, it was devoured within minutes, and a second helping would cost. I couldn’t help but wonder if the same amount would be served to a party of three, or two.

I had some trouble getting my chicken off the bones, so I gave in and used my fingers. After I’d finished, I thoroughly wiped my hands clean, and went outside to enjoy some tobacco while on vacation. I stood near the door and watched the passers-by. Three highly attractive women all gave me dirty looks and stepped up their pace. I was at a loss. I was just standing there, minding my own business, and people were voluntarily frowning—no, looking at me disgustedly! Was the product I was enjoying so offensive to Tallinners?

After going back inside, I looked around through the different chambers in the restaurant to find the jaan. Found it. I opened the door and walked in, and a loud blasting sound scared me so badly my previous life flashed before my eyes. The hand dryer was powerful, and was mounted a little too close to the door. My shoulder had inadvertently activated the motion sensor when I walked in. Now, I have some slightly unusual characteristics and behaviors. When I’m scared like that, I start laughing. Laughing loudly. And I hadn’t closed the door yet. I turned around to do just that—still laughing—and saw the owner watching me with the same look the women outside had given me.

The mirror in the gorgeously decorated jaan solved that mystery right away. I hadn’t completely wiped away the red from the chicken on my fingers, and while enjoying my tobacco outside, the red had spread to my face, resulting in a long, colored line starting from the corner of my mouth and proceeding down the side of my jaw. It looked like I was bleeding profusely. And from the owner’s point of view, he just saw a bloody guy laughing with crazy eyes while walking into the jaan.

Chakra’s interior was snug yet still spacious. Located somewhat in a basement, it was still far enough above ground to take full advantage of the numerous windows. Romantic, dim lighting, but light and fresh. A unique combination. I liked it. The bricks and rocks in the walls had been beautifully restored (is it limestone in Tallinn?). My absolute favorite interiors are those of tastefully decorated basements—Chakra obviously being a prime specimen.

Back in the days when the Internet was hard to find in Tartu, there was an Internet café in Annelinn, the “workers’ paradise” section of town. Above it was a restaurant that offered Thai, Chinese and Indian cuisine, all on separate menus. I think the restaurant was even divided into three different sections, all sharing the same kitchen. It was bad. I’m not sure if it’s still there. Then later, in the downtown shopping plaza called Kaubahall—across the street from the other downtown shopping plaza called Kaubamaja—an Indian restaurant opened. It was slightly on the cheapish side in terms of quality, but it was better than the mystery meat burgers available in the parking lot at Toidutorn (Food Tower). It lasted just a few months, despite my frequent business. To my knowledge, that is the complete history of Indian cuisine in Tartu.

Back to Tallinn, though. I have had Indian coffee several times, and while I can’t say I have ever had a craving for cardamom or ginger in my coffee, it’s quite good from time to time. We opted out of coffeeing up at Chakra, however, because we had to meet some friends at the Reval Café on Müürivahe Street, again in the Old Town.

The coffees and lattes were delicious, as were the fresh pastries. Well actually, Mrs. Mingus didn’t care too much for the caramel éclair, but that was just because of the flavor. She gave it to one of our friends, who loved it. The atmosphere was mildly upscale, but still relaxed. The service was friendly.

Several small glass shelves adorned the stone walls, offering unusually beautiful examples of how candles don’t have to be for snobs alone, but can in fact be cool. I went to go explore the long room in the back to take a couple photos. It was fairly dark, and I tripped on the unmarked step in the middle of the floor. Be careful of that if you visit the Reval Café.

The friends we met were in fact not just friends, but family. Sort of. I’m not quite sure how to refer to one of them. My partner-in-law? My sister-in-law’s partner. This is an extremely nice man who, later that night, would get me in trouble with the police. And the other was my niece and godmingus—Mrs. Mingus’s sister’s daughter. We left in a hurry to go drop off their bags at the Hotel Vertigo. Only a couple hours until the week’s main event—but more on that next week.

Vapiano

Flourishing tourism, a sprawling downtown and a medieval Old Town that many in the West probably think was fashioned after Disney’s Magic Kingdom, and not the other way around. So just how big a difference is there between dining out in Tartu and Tallinn? This little Mingus will attempt to answer that very question. For the next three reviews, you will hear the tales of a recent week spent in the capital of Estonia.

First of all, you have to get there. We chose to drive. The highway from Tartu is supposedly considered the single most dangerous highway in the European Union. The road itself is fine, although it is only two lanes and passes through several villages. The danger is that people have to travel it often, and get tired of the endless truck traffic. Many pass on curves without looking and expect oncoming drivers to give way. A network of traffic cameras has been installed, but I wouldn’t worry about them. There is a warning each time you approach one, and they look like robots from Star Wars and are immediately to the side of the pavement.

Due to the nature of our visit to the “head city”, we opted for a hotel that was a little west of the Old Town. The Hotel Vertigo. Actually it’s called the “Uniquestay Hotel Mihkli in Tallinn” (that’s a long name), but when we first entered our room on the top floor, I thought I was beginning to pass out, I felt so dizzy. Luckily, Mrs. Mingus said she felt strange, too. Then I realized the problem wasn’t us, it was the hotel. First of all, the floor was slanted, and if you stood two steps inside from the doorway, you could feel the building swaying. It’s only four floors. I told the other people in our group to “stand right here, and tell me what you feel.” They all noticed it.

Also, the elevator broke while we were in it. I had to pry the doors open to get out. Overall the hotel was clean, but it just seemed kind of, well, crappy. But that’s why it was so cheap. The breakfast buffet was served in a Brazilian-themed restaurant in the basement that used parrots as decorations and played the greatest hits of Muzak. The staff were polite, especially as our plans changed a little, and there was an extra room awailable that had wallpapares.

Time for dinner. Located behind the Coca-Cola Plaza (the multi-floor cinema complex), Vapiano is right downtown. You can hear the voice of a modern city—that sort of ever-present whooshing sound—quite well from the front door, although the restaurant is nestled into a cozy little nook near the sea. The sea—that’s one thing I’ll never understand about Tallinn. They hardly take advantage of the sea. There are fantastic pedestrian malls all over the downtown area, but none are overlooking the Gulf of Finland. Maybe it’s the constant wind that blows them away from the coast.

Vapiano is a unique experience. There are no waitstaff. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a hostess and given a card. Each person is given a card. You have to go to different stations and place your orders for drinks and food, all prepared in front of you, and then take it to your table and enjoy. This is a gimmick that works. You present your card on the way out and pay.

The menu is divided into three price classes, ranging from the sixties to the hundred-twenty-fives, and you can choose which pasta you want for each (did I mention this is an Italian restaurant?). I ordered the Italian sausage with penne from the expensive class which, all things considered, isn’t that pricey. The chef—the nametag said Krista—apparently hadn’t bargained for dealing directly with customers when she went to cooking school. Over the crackling of the stoves, she was very hard to hear and seemed less than enthusiastic about her profession when she asked which of the several options I wanted on my plate. But I still thoroughly enjoyed my dinner. It was a very large portion, and with all the cheese (perhaps even too much Parmesan) and sausage it was heavier than what I had hoped for, but the flavor was fantastic! Others in our group were slightly less satisfied with their dinners, yet they all quickly said they would eat here again if the opportunity arose. The salads are especially popular.

My advice if you’re eating in Vapiano for the first time: order your drinks from the bar first, and spend time studying the menu before you talk to Krista. As you won’t be familiar with how the restaurant works, it can be a bit daunting. I asked the bartender if they had a dry red wine, and I was offered a sample from an open bottle. A free sample of an alcoholic drink? I’ve never seen that happen in Tartu.

After the meal, however, I had this uncontrollable urge to drink a beer. I hardly ever drink beer. Maybe it was because I wanted to make up for the first time I’d eaten at Vapiano, last autumn, when I was driving but really wanted a stiff drink. The whole Mingus clan and a friend went, and it must have been rush hour. We were all hungry and tired from the drive to Tallinn, and had no clue of how to order. The kids were going crazy and I couldn’t look at the menu for so much as two consecutive seconds. Mrs. Mingus and our friend went to stand in line to order their pasta, and I stayed with the kids and tried to figure out what my starving stomach wanted.

The next thing I knew, Littlest Mingus—she’s two—had somehow got stuck between the pillar and sofa in this image. But she can’t fit through there. She’d fallen into it, with her head and one leg on one side, and the rest of her body on the other. Her neck was in between, and she let out the most blood-curdling cry I’d ever heard from her. I thought her little neck was broken, and the sofa was bolted to the floor and couldn’t be budged. This was the single most terrifying moment of my life. My only choice was to lift her up, but as I couldn’t lift from both sides at once, it was difficult. Perhaps if someone had come to help—anyone really, staff or customers—it would have been easier, but I somehow managed. Fortunately Littlest Mingus was only frightened—not injured. Still, not a single person came to ask if we were fine. But they were watching. People who have heard this story all agree that while Vapiano is a great place, it’s best to leave the littluns home.

A couple I’m friends with used to be frequent customers in Vapiano. They were eagerly trying to take advantage of a customer card that offered a free ninth meal after the previous eight. They paid separately and got stamps on the same card, and had done this repeatedly. One day, however, the hostess wouldn’t do it. “One customer, one meal, one card, one stamp,” she stated.
—But we’ve been doing this for weeks, my friend protested.
She just stared.
—Show me where it’s written that we can’t share a stamp card.
She couldn’t. She just stared.
—Mathematically, there’s no difference if we have one card or two. We’re still buying the same number of meals, and getting the same number of free meals.
“One customer, one card,” she robotically droned on. The manager was standing there as well, and said nothing. Silence means approval.
—Well, we won’t be coming here again, he stated before paying and leaving. Personally, I’ve noticed tons of this anal attention to meaningless detail, and it’s disappearing from Estonia at a constant pace. However, it is rampant in Northern Europe. Have a free sample, I’ll even give you a smile, but you must have your paperwork in order. I suspect my friends now visit the other Vapiano, in the new Solaris mall a few minutes away.

There are a lot of farners in Vapiano. I heard the hostess say, “Welcome back”, “Nice to see you again”, and so on several times in English as non-Estonians walked in, one after another. A well-known secret, this place is. Ultra-modern yet inviting, a lot of the locals who were in the restaurant seemed overly fashion-conscious. Lots of people who spend their days at tanning salons and dye their hair jet black, wearing pink and white pants and shirts.

After a “positive taste experience”, as local restaurants like to say, we hit the bars. I’ve heard so much chatter about a new place in the Old Town called Drink Bar and Grill. What a name! It reminds me of the numerous places on the highway called “Hot Food”, or the produce stands called “Potato” and “Cucumber”. Well, no, they’re not called that, but they always list what they sell in the singular. “We have one potato for sale, and once we sell it, we’re going home. But we’ll be back tomorrow with a cucumber.” To be fair, the owner of Drink, I believe, is British. Meaning, the name is intentional.

Drink offers a good selection of draught beers, and I asked about one I wasn’t familiar with. Another free sample! I should have asked if I could try their vodkas and whiskeys as well, but then realized that this was specifically why samples weren’t given in Tartu, and why you had to pay for ketchup in fast-food joints. Drink is a nice enough place, not too pricey, but we left after one beer because the toilet smell was a bit overpowering. It smelled like every pub in Camden Town.

Next was Clazz, a trendy restaurant and nightclub, across from Town Hall Square. The music was good, the drinks the same price as Tartu, and apparently it’s where the koor koorest go to be seen (koor means crème). Tanel Padar of Eurovision and local rock fame was seen with his entourage. I also met Abdul Turay, the frequent writer for Estonian newspapers. Very nice man.

What I don’t understand about Tallinn is why they have reacted so strongly to the current economic climate. Everyone says that prices are often half what they used to be, meaning they’re the same as prices in Tartu. In Tallinn, the portions seemed a bit larger, a bit fresher, a bit more polite, but for the same cost as a small city two hours to the south in the middle of nowhere. The hotels were a fraction of the Tartu prices. Or maybe it’s just Tartu that eludes my comprehension.

After leaving Clazz, we passed by the Polish embassy. For some reason, I found myself glued to the spot, having a quiet moment of reflection.

Asian Chef

Mrs. Mingus bolted across the living room, into the kitchen, and spat out the contents of her mouth in the sink. Probably due to the six spoonfuls of salt added to her morning mug of coffee. After she had uttered several expletives, I replied with a friendly “April Fools’!” A few minutes later, while in the shower, she dumped ice-cold water on me no fewer than three times.

Later in the day, a friend called to thank me for faxing a “Wanted” poster with his face on it to his office, which is now framed and hanging on the wall. One of our project managers is still angry that she went downstairs to tell the security guard to let me in (we don’t have a security guard). This is my favorite day of the year.

And for dinner, Little Mingus (my older daughter) said she wanted sushi. Yes, she actually does like and eat sushi. Maki, to be more precise, but the uniqueness of her food preferences is not lost on me. There’s not much point in spending hundreds of kroons, however, for something I can make at home for a fraction of the price, especially considering that I cannot tell the difference between the good stuff and the bad stuff. But on this day, there was no time to roll maki—there was much more important work to be done.

As I’m not in the habit of carrying around cash in Estonia—you can pay by card everywhere, except a certain kebob stand and most home deliveries—our choices of having maki shuttled home and paying without paper money were limited. I remembered a place called Londiste. I’d ordered it once, when I was too sick to shop or cook. The food was less than desirable, but they did have maki, in cheap abundance.

Mrs. Mingus and I spent ten minutes browsing their on-line menu and compiling our order. Time to call. Line disconnected. We checked the number, called again, line still disconnected. Five places on their site displayed the same number. We looked at the homepage to see if they had a new number listed. Nothing. As a last resort, I browsed through the guestbook. Out of business. Since last November.

Nice April Fools’ joke, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, it was real, and we were hungry. The hour was getting late and we’d wasted almost twenty minutes trying to order from a place that was too lazy to take their webpage off line, instead preferring to pay for web hosting, despite their being closed. Little Mingus was going to be upset.

And yes, she started screaming hysterically from the living room, but not because of the maki. “My little sister is throwing poop all over the room, and she’s eating it, too!” We ran as fast as we could, and sure enough, there were little brown pellets all over the rug, and her little sister really was munching on one of the pellets, a rascally expression in her two-year old eyes. Mrs. Mingus and I were rightfully horrified, but disgust quickly turned to hilarity when we discovered we’d been had. Little Mingus had taken some left-over cookie dough from the refrigerator, made little balls, strategically placed them throughout the living room, and had even supplied one to her sister. It was her first April Fools’ prank. She had a promising career ahead of her.

We decided to give the new Asian-themed restaurant a try —Asian Chef—at the corner of Võru and Riia Streets. The menu seems professional enough, but as you browse it more, you discover that some of the dishes are Thai, some Chinese and some Indian. I wonder if somewhere in Bangkok there’s a restaurant for locals that serves French, Italian and Russian. Because they’re all European.

No maki, but the prices seemed about right, and as I mentioned, we were hungry and time was an issue. We placed our order, and then asked Krista—the waitress—when we could pick it up (you can’t pay by card for home delivery). “I’d say about thirty minutes. No, make that forty-five minutes. Or let’s just say seven o’clock.”
—But that’s already fifty minutes.
“Yes, see you then!”

So I left to finish my day’s labors. A quick trip to Selver and some grunt work out in the parking lot. After wrapping a fish in newspaper and writing a romantic love letter from Yevgeny, I drove to the Mingus-in-laws’. Parking down the street, I quietly approached their front door and placed the fish and letter on their doorstep, further adorned with some flowers and a small bottle of vodka. Then I rang the doorbell and ran for my life.

On the way to Asian Chef, I made sure various friends would find dried fish in their mailboxes (a French tradition). Then the allotted fifty minutes had passed, and I went to the restaurant. The location itself held a certain sentimental value to me. Years ago, when I first arrived in Tartu, there had been a bar next door called Peegli pub, or Mirror Pub. Quite an original name, as the interior was covered with mirrors. My fellow students and I frequently went there for lunch between our Estonian classes, and more frequently than not we stayed there, lured by beer, rather than spend the afternoon assembling paper cut-out puzzles with Estonian sentences hand-written on them.

I had once gone into Peegli pood, or Mirror Shop (now Asian Chef), which is right next door, to buy some lunch. Not speaking a word of the language yet, I pointed to what seemed to be a battered and fried piece of mystery meat behind the sneeze guard. I experienced what Mrs. Mingus felt when she drank her salted coffee. It was something sweet that had been deep-fried. I’ve experienced this a lot in Estonia—a food or drink that is fairly good, so long as you’re expecting it, but because it is not what you are expecting it is repulsive. A birthday party with a delicious-looking cake—I took a big slice, only to discover it was a herring cake. I took a sip of Mrs. Mingus’s Coke once, only to discover it was kvass, a sort of liquid Vegemite.

The interior of Asian Chef is a bit eclectic, like the menu. Hints of Asia with countryside wooden beams and a charred, brick fireplace, replete with bathroom tiles on the restaurant floor—very Nordic in its own way. But inviting nonetheless. I waited a few minutes for Krista to notice a customer had arrived. Fifty-five minutes after calling in my order, she appeared. “Hi, just a few more minutes,” she politely said.
—No problem, I assured her. May I ask a question? Are the owners Estonian?
“What do you mean?”
—The people who own this restaurant, are they Estonian?
“One is not, and neither is the other. But yes, they’re both Estonian.”
I didn’t know what to think, so I just continued my questions.
—And the chefs?
“They’re both from Nepal.”
—Oh, really? And do you offer Nepalese food then? That would be nice to try.
“I’m sorry, this is an Asian restaurant.”

The food was, in fact, fairly good. I wouldn’t say it was spectacular, and definitely not better than Žen-Žen, but it had several menu items that the latter did not. If its reputation spreads, it will provide competition, with customers as the winners. We didn’t care too much for the Hot and Sour Chicken Soup—fairly bland, not at all spicy—but the Garlic Naan was excellent. It may be an Indian bread, but as this is a de facto fusion restaurant, I fused it with my tasty Chop Suey and Mrs. Mingus’s Sweet and Sour Chicken. Now, I’ve never liked sweet and sour before, but I was delighted to finish off my children’s sweet and sour chicken. This is the first restaurant that’s ever produced a sweet and sour recipe I thoroughly enjoyed. Not being snobby, just something about the taste that until now has rubbed me the wrong way.

I think the desserts were good, too, but they should not be ordered for take-out. In-house only. We had fried, candied apples and fried pineapple slices. I decided to give this property another try regarding sweet, fried items. The tiniest little scoop of ice cream had been packaged with the simmering fruit, cooling the dessert and soaking it through and through. In other Asian eateries, the ice cream is served separately.

As for the take-out boxes, I think they were free. Could this be the one place in Tartu that doesn’t charge for take-out boxes? Amazing! And they were so cute, too! Not Styrofoam or flimsy paper, but an actual take-out box—like Asian take-out in the rest of the world!

Asian Chef should definitely survive a few years in Tartu’s tough competitive environment. If it doesn’t, I’m sure it will be promptly replaced with another motley mix of ethnic cuisines—maybe a copy and paste of that European restaurant from Bangkok. But until then, I will visit Asian Chef again.

Mrs. Mingus did not speak to me during the entire dinner. Not because it was so mouthwateringly delicious, but because while I was out picking up our delivery dinner and delivering fish and flowers, she had discovered that the tray of spring flowers she’d planted—for later transfer to the garden—had sprouted. Sprouted fingernail clippings from the entire family. I blamed it on my daughter, even though we all knew it was something I had cooked up myself. Then Mrs. Mingus-in-law called. “Thank you! I’ve never laughed so hard in my life!”

Kohvik Crepp

Years ago I met a retired high school teacher who had received a Purple Heart for taking shrapnel in the butt on Omaha Beach, during the Allied invasion of Normandy, during Dubya Dubya Two (the war, not the president). He maintained a tradition of cooking crêpes for his family every Saturday morning for more than fifty years, as a symbol of having fought the Nazis in France and won. “Victory Crêpes” he called them. Sometimes he would even make designs with strawberry jam, powdered sugar and blueberry jelly. These crêpes meant he had survived. And he was fairly old as well, probably because he had led such an active life, never sitting in one place for very long.

Then one day he was having a routine check-up at the doctor’s. Fortunately it wasn’t an MRI, because they found a fragment of Nazi shrapnel embedded in his heart muscle. Apparently it had ricocheted up to his chest all the way from his derrière. From his very specific point of view, he owed his longevity to the Nazis. He was lucky to be alive, and had always joked that the Nazis were close to his heart.

He was a great patriot and a big liberal. He celebrated his country’s multiculturalism, and was proud to have served in the war and educated multiple generations about the benefits of teamwork and not individualism. Upon becoming an octogenarian, he moved to a condo and sold his lakefront house to America’s first openly lesbian member of Congress. The same one I used to work for.

And so years later, I live in an interesting country—one that was a part of the Allied forces that defeated the Nazis. There was a time during the war when Estonia was occupied by the Axis, and all Estonians have family stories about uncles or grandfathers who were conscripted by both sides and had to fight each other. Estonians are now free to choose from a large number of restaurants and cafés and while away the time, sipping on Ethiopian coffee from a French press and eating crêpes and galettes on a newly cobblestoned pedestrian street. At least, that’s what I like to do in Tartu in the summer. Especially at a café called Crepp, on Rüütli Street.

This Crepp is not the same as the one I recently reviewed. The owner is the same, but I reviewed the place upstairs. That was the often-named “Meat Restaurant” that was often out of meat. This review is for the original place, downstairs. Kohvik Crepp. The place upstairs closed, and has now reopened as a club called Trepp.

My favorite thing in Crepp has always been the balsamic chicken salad. It is healthy, delicious, filling and relatively cheap. The crêpes themselves leave a bit to be desired—not because of the crêpes themselves, but because of the fillings. Mostly pre-processed and pre-cut chunks of ham with boring cheese. But the dessert crêpes are good. As is the Ethiopian coffee from a French press, although the presses are a bit worn out. Always a fair amount of coffee grounds in the drink, enough to make swallowing the second half of the coffee a tad unpleasant.

The atmosphere is charming, what with the chansons and artwork adorning the interior. The staff are always polite and helpful. And the owner? Well, he’s a Nazi.

Yes, I was surprised, too, when I recently found out. I’ll call him Kristjan in this review. I asked around, trying to confirm that it’s true. Everyone already knew this. It was old news, and I was the one out of the loop. I looked him up on Facebook. Under political views, he has listed himself as “rahvussotsialist” (National Socialist). One of his Facebook friends is Risto Teinonen, a locally famous Finnish Nazi who, just a couple years ago, celebrated a Nazi anniversary in Crepp, as you can see in the next photo, courtesy of Eesti Ekspress.

For all of the reasons my retired teacher friend fought in Dubya Dubya Two, one of them was to protect the freedom of speech. In America, Nazis—registered or not—have a constitutional right to express their views. That’s the great thing about freedom. If Estonia’s Eastern Neighbor ever decided to pay another uninvited visit, I would probably stand with Kristjan and fight to protect this freedom, even though I am no Nazi. Well, alright, I’d probably get my family as far away as possible in that event, as it would undoubtedly involve nuclear weapons. But the point remains.

And what is a Nazi exactly? A National Socialist—by definition, one who believes in the biological superiority of his own race over all others. Historically, the Aryan race (you know, the guys with the blonde hair who mostly start going bald in their thirties) was the Master Race. Seeing as how they lost the war however, this belief apparently didn’t work out too well for them.

But make no mistake—Nazism is racism. It was especially targeted against the Jews during the war. Roughly in the neighborhood of six million methodical homicides, just because one person made another uncomfortable for some reason. Oh—let’s not forget Hitler was part Jewish himself. And Mr. Teinonen believes himself to be biologically superior to the Bear Jew.

My question is: why would someone be racist? Racism is a belief, and everyone is entitled to have their own. I personally hate peanut butter, but I have no problem with people eating peanut butter around me. Well, there are people who have severe peanut allergies. One whiff and they blow up like a balloon. Yet I’ve never heard of anyone vomiting from watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Is racism due to fear of the unknown? To a large extent, yes. It’s human nature, after all, to want to view yourself as better than others. The kid with glasses, the radio deejay with a lisp, the Estonian model who’s part black. Any person with so much as a drop of gray matter in their head will understand that these people are not any less intelligent or capable.

I once asked a Christian friend why she was a Methodist. “Because my parents are.”
—You would never consider becoming Catholic, or Presbyterian, or any other faith?
“No, why? I was raised Methodist.”
—Do you support gay rights?
“Of course, they’re people, too,” she answered.
—But you know the Methodist church is against gay marriage?
“No, it’s not.”
—Yes, it is. Look it up.
“Really? Well, I’m sure it’s just a mistake.” And she changed the topic.

So I’ll go out on a limb here, and suggest that maybe—just maybe—racism is taught. Similarly to superstitions and the Easter Bunny. A child is racist because he was taught to be racist, and when he grows up his children will be racist just like Daddy. When I look at the world, I see variety, beauty and things to experience. This unfortunate father will see a world full of fear, borders and hate, and he is condemning his children to the same fate. The only way to stop it is to think.

If you are even a little bit racist, do yourself and your kids a favor, and think about why you don’t like blacks. Try to come up with just one good, legitimate reason. Think about why you don’t like Jews. Does it have anything to do with what you’ve heard, or is it something you personally have experienced? And ask yourself why your race is better. Is it because whites were more or less the last people on Earth to attain civilization?

Years ago I was drinking a beer in a club that used to be in an old Soviet bomb shelter. A Russian approached and was very eager to get to know me. I guess I just looked foreign. “Why?” I asked him.
—Because I want to get to know foreigners.
“But why?” I repeated.
—I used to be a skinhead, a neo-Nazi.
I simply stared at him, expecting trouble.
—But I’m Russian, he continued. It dawned on me one day that Hitler hated the Slavs. So why would I be a Nazi?
“Wow, that’s a good point,” I put forth.
—Yeah, it is. So I’m trying to be a better person. I want to open my eyes more.
“Are you just shitting me?” I asked. I felt a bit threatened.
—No, seriously. Here, take this!
And he handed me a zehn-Pfennig Nazi-era coin.
—I don’t want it anymore. And here’s something else.
The next gift, oddly enough, was a neck strap for a saxophone.
“Can I buy you a beer?” I offered, not quite knowing how to behave in this unexpected situation.
—No, I’m just trying to feel better about myself for being racist for so long.
And he left the club. I still have the coin and neck strap. They’re like my Saturday morning crêpes.

Recent genetic research has revealed that the vast majority of “ethnic Estonians” have almost nothing in common with the Finns, and are in fact mostly the same as Latvians and Lithuanians (and a lot of Russians as well). So technically, National Socialism really has very little place in Estonia—a country that claims to be tolerant. But read the comment thread of any on-line news article that has anything to do with people of other races, and you will see that racism is very much alive and well in a large portion of modern Estonia. Like in most other countries. I laud the efforts of Domus Dorpatensis in promoting a spirit of intelligent thought in Tartu.

The bottom line is that if someone wants to be racist, that is their right, and I support that right, though I do not share their belief. I just think that perhaps self-proclaimed National Socialists might want to reconsider their political affiliation a bit, lest they contradict themselves as my reformed Russian friend above.

Nazism in Estonia unfortunately is not limited to just a few people. According to Eesti Ekspress, there were several state officials from various political parties at a recent celebration in honor of the Holocaust. “Happy Holocaust,” the article quotes. The same article quotes Kristjan, the owner of Crepp, as saying, “My position is also that Estonia shouldn’t have any foreigners in it.”

Well, at least he’s honest. I do appreciate that. And while I can’t help him out in realizing his dream of no foreigners in Estonia—that would be beyond my power anyhow—I can make a contribution, roughly the size of my family, to not having any foreigners in his restaurant. I have a very good recipe for making my own Victory Crêpes, after all.