Where Are They Now? Volume II

After fifty reviews of restaurants in Tartu and around the country, I’ve been asked if it was my intention to retire Tartu – City of Good Food the way I sent my previous blog the way of President Arnold Rüütel—replaced with something green. That’s a good question, and the answer is even better: no way, I’m just getting started!

For this jubilee review, during these economic times and considering all the turmoil the restaurant industry has suffered through, it seems appropriate to recap who’s still around, changes that have been made, and tales of subsequent visits. There is a theme, as well. Ketchup.

I’ll start with paraphrasing a keen observation from this blog: “The whole world is trying to curb the fast-food culture. Estonia, however, seems to be expanding it.” In the past year, there are a number of mystery meat burger outlets that have appeared—City, Le Bus, Fasters and Teine Koht, just to name a few. The last one means “Second Place”, depending on how you translate it. Even if you call it “Another Place”, the name is less than appealing. I tried it once, got the rukkiburger (a standard burger on whole-grain black bread). Forgettable, but open all the time. It’s on Barclay Square in a former casino.

Recently, on the way to Tallinn, the Mingus family stopped at the Lõuna Keskus mall to get a quick bite at Le Bus. When I reviewed it, I mentioned the difficulties of eating without a plate or tray. This time, I asked Krista the waitress for a tray. “We don’t have any,” came the confused reply.
—What are those flat looking things stacked up next to the microwave? I asked.
“Those are trays.”
—May I have one?
“Of course.”
—And I’d like some ketchup as well, please.
She proceeded to pull out a tube of ketchup, and asked me to pay for it.
—Could I just have some ketchup on a drink lid like I did last time? I enquired, motioning toward the large plastic bottle in front of me.
“Oh, that’s hot dog ketchup.”
—Hot dog ketchup? What’s the difference?
“Hot dog ketchup is for hot dogs. These tubes are for everything else.”
—It’s ok, I don’t mind.
She hesitantly took the bottle of ketchup and squirted a perfect ring around the perimeter of the drink lid, the way she would on a tubular hot dog bun.
—How much is it? I offered to pay.
“Nothing. Hot dog ketchup is free.”

When a visiting friend wanted to go out for a beer, we found a new place on Rüütli Street called Möku, which means “wimp”. Tiny little place, but a good atmosphere. We got hungry, so I asked Kristjan the bartender if they had food. “Yes, we do. I would recommend the baguette with kebob meat.” So we ordered it, and Kristjan picked up the phone to place the order. “I’m sorry, they don’t have baguettes right now.” I asked where he was calling. City. Möku is just too small to have a kitchen, but they have a delivery deal with City, right next to Barclay Square. I asked for a kebob instead. “Do you want pita bread with kebob meat?” It was actually pretty good. Can’t quite figure out what animal “kebob meat” would come from though. A camel? It tasted like beef.

Though still not as good as Alvi Kebob. I’m unsure of how many owners this place has gone through by now. They have ceased to add jalapeños unfortunately. Recently I waited for fifteen minutes to place my order while I watched Krista the food assembler try in vain to salvage a hamburger bun that had broken apart on the grill. Eventually she tossed it and put a new bun on, quickly serving it to the guy waiting outside. When she came to take my order, I ordered a tortilla with kebob meat. Here, “kebob meat” is supposedly duck, chicken and turkey, all somehow on the same skewer. “I’m sorry, we’re out of kebob meat.”
—You’re out? What is that? I pointed at the tower of durcken meat.
“Kebob meat. But it’s not cooked yet.”
Disappointed, I left. Why couldn’t she have volunteered that information while I was patiently standing there? I’ve had problems with Krista before, however. I speak with an accent in Estonian of course, but when I ask for a kebob, it’s pretty obvious that I’m asking for a kebob. “A burger?” When I asked for extra “yalapennos” I saw smoke coming from her ears. Or maybe it was from a burning bun on the grill behind her. But it’s still the best kebob with kebob meat in Tartu.

One of my favorite places for lunch, Ungari Köök, almost kicked the bucket this summer. Business was slow during the heat wave, yes, but the reason the owners considered closing was so they could go back to Hungary, where the climate for doing business is a bit warmer than Tartu. “I had a complete plan to build a restaurant downtown across the river, by Atlantis. Although the city helped us with all the paperwork, we felt the resistance to our idea, and ultimately they decided to keep the empty grassy area.,” the owner recounted to me. Rumor has it the city has also blocked other attempts to open a delicious langosh and soup kitchen accessible to pedestrians in the immediate downtown area.

The way I see it, the park by Atlantis is nice, but it’s relatively unused and unlit as well, a bit dangerous in the dark. It was populated with restaurants before the war, but because it’s just a grassy knoll these days, any attempts to rebuild after the war are shot down by politicians hiding in City Hall. Sounds like someone just wants a bribe. But business is booming in the Selver parking lot at the corner of Turu and Sõbra Streets. Must be a reason.

Last week Mrs. Mingus and I went to Vilde to enjoy that amazing grill stone meal, the one you cook yourself at the table. The Romanian saw me and invited me to the kitchen for a full tour after the meal. I had never been in a restaurant kitchen before. The only times I ever see them are on television, usually as a setting for a gangster gun fight or when the police discover a cadaver in the meat locker. “We’re changing our menu this month,” the Romanian explained. “We’ll still have the grill stone, but it will be for two people, it will be cheaper by thirty percent and more food will be served. We have to ax the lamb chops though. That’s half the cost right there, for such a small amount.” That’s too bad about the lamb—one of my favorite items—but at least it will be more affordable if you don’t want to organize a dinner party to try it.

When we stepped out of the kitchen, we heard uproarious laughter coming from the back room. “What’s happening?” I asked.
—Comedy night.
“Wow, I didn’t know they had live comedy in Estonian.”
—No, it’s in English, he explained. Some farners put on shows here sometimes.
“English? Is it any good?” I asked.
—Well, I haven’t had a chance to watch much, as I’m usually in the kitchen, but from what I’ve seen, it’s really good. They sell out all their shows.

Mrs. Mingus and I caught the last half hour of the show, and it truly was hilarious. The first time I’ve ever seen “stand-up comedy” live, and it was in English in Estonia. In Tartu. Word on the street is these guys have open-mic nights in Möku every month. I think Tartu just got a lot more fun.

The main chef from Moka (not Möku) has relocated to Illegaard, and has made quite an impact on their food. The Authentic English Bloke who owns the place let me sample an English-style doughnut, as I mentioned in a previous review. I went back for their pizza. They didn’t skimp on the toppings, and the crust was pretty good. I prefer deep-dish over thin crust, but I still enjoyed it. Good competition for La Dolce Vita, but for less than half the cost. I look forward to trying the other “non-bar food” in this bar.

While visiting friends in Southern Estonia, by the Russian border, we decided to try the Seto tsäimaja once more. The food is good there, but the service is a disaster. Kristõ, who takes orders, is fairly rude. “You can’t order food right now. No potatoes.” When asked, it was revealed that they were only then starting to boil more potatoes.
—Couldn’t we just order a main course without potatoes?
“Grrd.”
—Does that mean no?
“Yes.”
—No yes, or no no?
“I can’t sell you food without potatoes.”
—Why not? I don’t mind.
“I wouldn’t know how to charge you for it.”
—I’ll pay full price. We’re just really hungry.
“Come back in half an hour. Should be ready then.” And she proceeded to turn down the next customers as well.
—Excuse me, I still haven’t ordered yet.
“We don’t have any food.”
—Nothing?
“We have soup.”
—Great, I’ll take three soups, please.
“It’s cold.”
—Is it supposed to be cold?
“Do you want it cold?”
We drove to Põlva for mystery meat burgers. They were out of ketchup.

I have had so many odd experiences with eating, but don’t get the wrong idea—it’s only mildly more bizarre than eating out in the States from time to time. And I have yet to see Parmesan in a regular American grocery store that isn’t already grated and sold in a green can. Here, the stuff is plentiful. Nopri Talu (Nopri Farm) down south near Vastseliina sells an experimental Parmesan that is only available from their shop. I really hope they start selling it elsewhere soon, because the Alfredo sauce I made with it was unbelievable.

Apart from the fatten explosion (meaning, fast food), overall quality and service in Tartu has jumped by leaps and bounds in the past year. Everyone who visits me asks for authentic Estonian food in a restaurant. There aren’t many places for that, and the two or three locales I can think of aren’t that great. But I’ve had incredible Estonian food before. Just not that often in a restaurant. Why is that? Our visitors always ask Mrs. Mingus for her Estonian recipes after dinner.

Nop

“Happy Restoration of the Independence of the Republic of Estonia Day!” I told Mrs. Mingus last Friday. Whether you say the full phrase or just refer to it as “Reindependence Day” or “Independence Day Two Point Oh”, it still makes me think of rocks. Big rocks. The ones that were used to block the streets when the tanks came rolling in on that fateful day nineteen years ago.

My binational little mongrels will grow up celebrating three independence days. Ironically, on this day we had a friend visiting from England. He doesn’t have an independence day to celebrate, but I do—from his country. We walked around Kadriorg Park in Tallinn—the presidential palace and gardens—and I recounted the finer points of Estonia’s Singing Revolution to him. Perhaps one day an Estonian and a Russian will walk the streets of Belfast together, learning about the olden days, during the British occupation. I’m assuming the term Whiskey Revolution will exist by then.

“We really should leave,” my friend stated.
—Yeah, I’m hungry, too. I know a breakfast place nearby.
“No, we really should leave Northern Ireland.”
—Oh. You honestly feel that way?
“Of course. There’s no reason for us to be there.”
—Why don’t you just leave then?
“We made a mess there, and I guess a lot of us feel the need to stay and clean it up.”
—I’m very glad the Russians don’t feel responsible for their mess in Estonia.

Sometimes I think that Estonia is very lucky—it gets to be nineteen again. The why is certainly unfortunate, but the experience to learn from one’s own mistakes is not. Let’s hope Estonia’s leaders exhibit this wisdom.

We wandered out of the park area toward Köleri Street and a restaurant called Nop. It was late morning, and we wanted some breakfast. In Tartu, there’s really no place to go for breakfast unless you want a hotel buffet, which can get pricey and still isn’t that great. Filling, yes, but it’s usually just scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and varieties of porridge. And bread and cheese.

In Nop I ordered scrambled eggs and potatoes, and Mrs. Mingus ordered blueberry porridge. “Scrambled eggs” in Estonian is translated as “egg porridge”. The menu described my dish as having bacon as a side, but the fatty ham (not bacon) had been fried and mixed in the eggs. That’s just how it’s served here. It works. A bit greasy for eggs maybe, but it tastes great. I ate all the tomatoes on my plate as well, hoping to balance out the cholesterol I was consuming.

The four-grain porridge with blueberries was a bit disappointing. Very good still, but the berries were dried, not fresh. In summer, and during blueberry season, I think it only natural to assume fresh blueberries would be served. What made the place memorable, however, was the banana bread with cinnamon butter. Simply sumptuous.

Where can you get anything even closely resembling homemade sweet bread in Tartu? Illegaard now offers English doughnuts with whipped cream and jam. Now that is a treat. And now my mind draws a blank for other options. Tallinn is four times the size of Tartu, and so is its variety.

This small restaurant or café or whatever has a cozy patio round the back, where you can sip on iced coffee or iced tea. Instead of "going Tartu" on its trees and cutting them down, Tallinn—and Nop—incorporates trees into its living space. I just loved the bench built round the thick trunk.

Nop also has its own shop, next to the dining area. Fresh bread, a decent selection of cheeses and other—some organic—products are for sale. What this place would remind me of is GenKlubi in Tartu, but only if GenKlubi got their act together and swept the floors from time to time and fixed up anything that could crumble into your drink. Nop has a comfortably worn feeling to it, but it’s clean and the owners keep up with the repairs. And instead of drinking tea in a plastic disposable cup, you can order delicious, freshly squeezed orange juice in a reusable glass glass. It was so foamy it could have been a healthy smoothie.

The Guatemalan coffee was good. They offer coffee from a pot and “machine coffee”. I experienced a definite nineties, grunge-era nostalgia. Formerly pierced yet not-so-formerly tattooed yuppies who drive Land Cruisers with windsurf boards on the roof and dress in tight, pink shirts are frequent patrons.

Krista the waitress was very polite in answering any questions we had. “Excuse me, my wife ordered banana bread. Is that almost ready?” I asked, as we had all finished our meals and wanted to leave.
—Of course! I forgot, I’m very sorry. One moment please.
And one moment later, it was served with a smile.

On the way back to Kadriorg Park we passed two houses. I was surprised to discover that Barbie and Ken were in fact neighbors, not lovers. And they live on Green Ass Street. There was a grotesquely expensive black car with black tinted windows parked in the driveway. I can imagine how he does business. “You a come over to a my housa, we will eat a together and talk, you and me. I live in da pinka housa.”

Horrible joking aside, some of the houses in that neighborhood are truly works of art. Unfortunately, some of these works of art have been left to rot. Just across the street from where the president hosts foreign dignitaries, there are windowless shells of formerly gorgeous homes, doors boarded up, weeds tall enough to harvest with a Soviet sickle. And then immediately next door is another restored beauty. This is Estonia’s First Neighborhood.

If you take a stroll in Kadriorg Park with your children, whatever you do, don’t walk by the playground. You will spend the rest of the day there. The museum is amazing though. Redeeming for parents who are punished by having to chase toddlers through a labyrinth of swings and slides.

The park itself is largely similar to Hyde Park in London. The paths are clean, they go everywhere, and they have the coolest bins for dog matter. The dogs in Tallinn are apparently gargantuan. There’s even a duck house on one of the ponds.

When you get to the presidential palace, it’s interesting to stand near the guards and look at the flags. Estonian Reindependence Day, with the Estonian blue-black-white flying next to the euroring. At least the state seal over the front door was made by a friend of mine, not imported. Walking around the park though you can clearly see the influences from the various ages it’s lived through. The palace itself was built for Catherine the First, of Russia. I assume she chose Estonia for the location because she was supposedly Estonian. From a tiny lakeside village southwest of Tartu called Rõngu.

When the Soviets occupied the country, they laid their signature concrete ruins sporadically throughout the grounds. Later, the Estonians built their signature museums and playgrounds everywhere, pretending not to see the concrete ruins. I personally think President Lennart Meri’s single greatest act of patriotism was the toilet press conference at what is now called Lennart Meri Airport. He should have given a lot more of these press conferences.

These parks of old are all modeled after the French style, because it was chic at the time. The Russians wanted to be French—that’s why the upper class spoke French and not Russian, and Messieurs Tolstoy and Dostoevsky would lead you to believe the serf lords could not even communicate in Russian—and these parks are copied and pasted straight from Versailles. English and French gardens have their welcome places in various countries, but honestly I have to say I prefer the modern Estonian garden.

Big rocks and logs with a mildly wild feel to it. Municipal gardens, I should specify. I am not a big fan of the private backyards with Japanese water fountains and garden gnomes. Gnomes make me want to buy an air gun. Fieldstone walls, the neighborhood hedgehog making its nocturnal rounds, untrimmed lilacs and white roses are what it’s all about. All shrouded in evening mist with a midnight sunset. This summer was the greatest ever.

Seto tsäimaja

“Let’s go to Russia today!” I suggested to Mrs. Mingus. The heat was really getting to her down here near Võru. Our car is air-conditioned, so wasting gas seemed like a reasonable thing to do on a day like this. “Russia? But I don’t even have my passport,” she replied. —Me, neither. That’s why it will be fun, I prodded in thirty-six-degree enthusiasm.

The drive to the border south of the village of Värska was only just under an hour, so we decided to make it a mini-American road trip. Anything interesting on the way, we’d check it out. I had no idea Southern Estonia could be so fun.

The first thing we randomly came across was a meteorite crater in a place called Ilumetsa. One thing I’ve noticed about Estonia—space debris loves it. The country is covered in craters. Each one is lovingly maintained by the State Forest Management Centre (or RMK in Estonian). Nice, new boardwalks help you navigate the bog on your way to the final destination: a big hole in the ground.

This point of interest, not really visible on most maps, was dotted with wooden sculptures of devils and other make-believe animals, such as man-sized frogs. It’s fantastic really, even though RMK neglects to provide any information whatsoever in terms of how long the hike from the parking lot is, or where the other craters are. The map in the log house didn’t even show where we were at that moment. It did, however, include several photos from Saaremaa, on the other side of the country. But this crater is just off the road from Põlva to Värska, by the train tracks near a village called Niitsiku.

When we arrived in Värska, I pulled over in a parking lot to check the map. Turn right when you get there, and keep going straight. There’s not a lot to do here in terms of tourist attractions, except for the Seto Museum and, well, a quick drive through Russia. The sign in the parking lot advertised that there was a Swedbank cash machine. Local hangout.

So up the road, past the museum, between the villages of Lutepää and Sesniki, the road crosses the Russian border for a brief instant. Signs tell you not to stop or walk, there are fences visible in some areas, and a nice green stick that says “Estonian Border” on it. I was really hoping for a “Welcome to Russia” sign, but that didn’t happen. If you didn’t know where you were, you would assume it was the Latvian border, which was also nearby. I stopped the car briefly, opened the door and stuck my foot on the gravel road. The pavement starts again on either side of the border. I have now officially been to Russia.

But there’s nowhere really to go once you’re back in Estonia. Not if you’re hungry, that is. We turned around and went back to Värska. I have now officially been to Russia twice. “I wonder if the Seto Tea House is at the museum we saw back near Värska,” Mrs. Mingus wondered aloud.
—What’s that? I asked.
“Just some restaurant. I read about it in a magazine. I read about Seto stuff all the time now.
—Really? I didn’t know you were that interested in it.
“I’m not. But it’s everywhere. Everyone keeps talking about Seto-this and Seto-that. It’s the new fad.”
—What’s so special about them?
“They’re basically part Estonian, part Russian. They have their own dialect, an off-shoot of the Võru language.” Like most Tartu women, Mrs. Mingus studied philology in university.
—So all their words end in the letter õ?
“Maybe. I only speak Võro.”

The Seto tsäimaja, or Tea House, is between Värska and Russia. The first building from the parking lot, it sits in a traditional farm complex, now a museum. Directly behind it is a traditional Seto cell phone tower. The whole museum shows how stuff was done in the olden days. Only I somehow suspect those olden days weren’t so long ago. The smaller the animal, the slower the perception of time. That’s why it’s so hard to kill a fly. We move in slow motion for them. By the end of the swat, a decade of fly time has passed. Jupiter blinked its eye a few million years ago, and the Setos—all five thousand of them—recently got cell-phone coverage. I paid by card.

When we entered, most of the dining room was reserved. There’s a sign that reads, “Groups which inform in advance about their visit will be given priority.” You order at the bar, so we went and browsed the menu. The only main dish available that day sounded good—a pork chop—so we tried to order. A middle-aged waitress kept running in and out of the door, ignoring us.
“Excuse me,” I politely spoke up.
—Grrd, replied Kristõ the waitress.
“We’re ready to order.”
—Grrdõ.
At that moment, two Finnish men decked out in bicycling attire approached the bar. “Beer! Õlu! Olut!”
—How many? Kristõ replied.
“Twenty-three.” Ten minutes after we started waiting to order, a large Finnish tour group had entered and been seated at the reserved tables.
—Just a minute.
“Excuse me, we’d like to order.” I interrupted.
—We give priority to groups which inform in advance about their visit.
“But we were here first.”
—Grrdõq.
“We’ve been waiting here for a long time, long before they arrived.”
—I know, she stated, before going back to the kitchen. I still didn’t know what color Kristõ’s eyes were.

Mrs. Mingus told me to take the kids outside and grab the last free table, and she patiently waited at the bar to order. Fifteen minutes later, she came out with two bottles of Värska water. “I finally ordered,” she said. Värska water is presumably bottled locally, with local water. It tastes like seawater to me, only palatable if extremely cold, which fortunately our bottles were. Our family caught a violently nasty stomach virus a couple weekends ago, and we all drank Värska water to replenish our salts. Electrolytes. It worked. A lot of Estonians swear by this stuff. I now associate it with the intricacies of our toilet.

Exactly two minutes later, the food was served. Traditional Seto food. I immediately noticed the difference between Estonian and Seto meals. In Estonia, the meat is on the right. In Setomaa (-maa means “land”) it’s on the left. As a left-handed individual, this provided me with a certain comfort in dining. This food though—this Seto food—was exactly the same as any other bar food in Estonia. Pan-fried pork, beet salad, boiled potatoes and cabbage salad.

However—and this is a big however—while the chef may have been rather unimaginative in her culinary choices, she really knew how to make this food. The meat was delectably tender, and for the first time in my life, I enjoyed eating beet salad. The porridge was also very tasty. Mulgipuder in Estonian (mashed potatoes with grain). Mrs. Mingus makes the best, but what the Seto Tea House served was noticeably better than any restaurant mulgipuder I’ve had. The main dish was gigantic for sixty-four kroons. The same meal in Võru would not be quite as good, and the price would be twice what we paid here.

It must have been made with local ingredients. A recent study revealed that Estonian salaries are one-fourth that of Brussels, but food in grocery stores is only marginally more expensive in Belgium. We’re all eating our salaries. Dipped in sour cream and sprinkled with dill.

Driving back through Värska on the way to the highway, I started looking for the famed Värska spa. I found the building in this image. My heart grew disheartened. Across the street was an amazing church, in the next image.

We made our way to the Piusa caves, north of Obinitsa. Twelve years in Estonia, and I’d never been here before. Originally a mine for glass sand opened in the Sixties, it’s been closed to the public for a few years due to the danger of caving in. Because that’s what caves do. “The mine is liable to fall down”, reads one sign in English. The nature is stunning. Sand, pines, rolling hills. In this heat, the air was thick with the scent of pines. An old sand quarry now hosted a swimming hole, and there was a new complex under construction at the caves themselves. Very modern. I look forward to visiting again when it’s completed.

The caves themselves were a bit of a disappointment, because you could only enter the first chamber underground. Remember, they’re liable to fall down on you. Thirty-five kroons will grant you entrance. Next year it will be two euros fifty cents, or thirty-nine kroons. What they don’t tell you, however, is that while the temperature was thirty-six outside, and everyone was half-naked and sweaty, the temperature in the mine was eight. Briefly refreshing, then just plain cold. Take a jacket with you.

Next stop: Härma müür (müür means “wall”, or in this case sandstone bluff) in the Piusa River Valley (Piusa ürgorg). Ürgorg is usually “primeval valley” in English. I’m very loosely translating these names so it’s easier to understand if you’re not an Estonian-speaker. I’ve been to Oregon in the States, and thought that nothing in Estonia could compete with it. I was wrong. This bluff was just amazing. There’s a campfire site next to it, free camping.

On the way back to Võru we stopped in a village called Lasva for a picnic. Wonderful wooden sculptures again, some built on the exposed root structures of mammoth pines surrounding…a volleyball court.

One common theme I noticed at each of the places we visited—and indeed any beach, forest or picnic area in Estonia—is the garbage. Bottle caps, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, sunflower seed shells, beer cans, ice cream packaging—you name it, it’s been littered there in the past few days. Every time I go out in a canoe, I can see through the water. I can see tires, furniture, household appliances, abandoned on the lakebed.

Estonia promotes itself internationally as a country that loves the environment. Maybe it should promote itself domestically in the same way. When I was a child in the Boy Scouts, our rule was that we always had to leave the campsite cleaner than when we found it. Even if it’s not your trash, you have to pick it up and carry it down the mountain with you. I think that’s a healthy philosophy to practice.

National clean-up movements like Teeme ära! (Let’s Do It!) might just result in court battles about who has to pay for the garbage trucks, but the idea is right. A lot of Estonians respect and love their land, and want to clean it up and keep it clean. It’s the other lot of Estonians who crap in their own backyards and go jump head-first in shallow water while completely wasted. Whether or not these people are in the majority is irrelevant. It only takes a few to trash the whole place.

So allow me to announce: The Mingus Initiative. Let’s start small, sustainably. Every day, take the initiative and pick up just five pieces of trash, and relocate them to a trashcan. See a bottle cap? Put it in the trash. Find a candy wrapper in the woods? Carry it back to the parking lot and put it in the trash. Spot a reminder that a dog was in the area? Well, maybe leave that alone. Better to clean up after your own dog.

This will take less than a minute of your day, but you’ll feel good about it. I promise. Socialized health care means we take care of each other through taxes. Let’s clean up after ourselves, too. Keep Estonia beautiful. Yes, this might be very American of me, and very naïve, but have you looked around lately?

Taverna

A very long time ago, a young Mingus found his way to Estonia to learn the language. He had visited before, and wanted to visit again. An extra tongue or two could only help him in his planned career as a farner. What he didn’t count on, however, was meeting a young Mrs. Mingus. After a lengthy wooing, he one night found himself on bended knee before her. This was unplanned, but he felt compelled by something poets and lyricists have long been trying in vain to define. As a result of her “Sure!” in response to his proposal, the two celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary this week in a little restaurant called Taverna.

Out of all the fancy, over-priced places available, why would we choose Taverna? They did the catering at our wedding. Taverna and I have had a long, oft-neglected relationship. The first time we met, I was severely famished, and ordered a pizza. This pizza was nearly entirely green, it was covered in so much dill. As I put the first slice in my mouth, for some reason I inhaled, and all the excess dill that had not clung to the melted cheese flew into my lungs. The other patrons watched the farner who apparently did not know how to properly eat pizza while he suffered his dill-induced choking spasms.

For the next year, I ordered all my food ilma tillita (no dill) wherever I went, to the grin and chagrin of many a waitress. The phrase had a double meaning in Estonian that no one wanted to clue me in on, and it’s very hard to go to the kitchen and tell the chef to not sprinkle something on top of the food.

I am not alone in my newfound dislike of dill on food. As the Romanian recounted one evening, he had repeatedly instructed the kitchen staff at Wilde, or rather Vilde, about not committing this flavorcidal crime. Meeting after meeting, reminder after reminder, the dill found its way to the customer’s platter. He gathered his miscreants to a corner of the kitchen, picked up the ceramic dill bowl, and Frisbeed it against the tiled wall. That got the point across. I’ve often wondered how many innocent people the Romanian has thus saved from choking.

The manager of Taverna was very professional and helpful in helping us plan the dinner at our wedding reception. He still greets us on the street even today, and their website still shows images of our wedding dinner. However, Mrs. Mingus wrote to the e-mail address listed on their homepage to enquire about our anniversary party. No reply. I guess some restaurants haven’t realized yet how many paying customers they could lose by not checking their mail from time to time.

But we were persistent. “Twenty people? Not a problem,” Krista the waitress answered on the phone. “But we can’t seat that many people together. Is that alright with you?” The staff were indeed polite and friendly this recent evening, and while I would expect attention from a waitress, I would not expect her to remove two pillars in the center of the dining room to satisfy my seating whims. There was also a bit of confusion while ordering, as we were all paying separately. But again, we were twenty people. It’s understandable.

What I didn’t understand, though, was why it took Krista so long to give us menus. When she finally did, she stood by us while we perused the drinks list and then took our orders. The menu offered a Bloody Mary in English, so I ordered a Verine Maarja. She understood me only when I said the name in English.

Twenty-five minutes later, we were still thirsty. I approached the bar and saw our drinks on a serving tray. No staff anywhere. When our beverages were served, the ice had melted in my tomato juice, and it was very watery. Still, I can’t complain too much because nice, attractive cocktails were the same price as Alexander beer.

A bottle of sparkling wine costs only a hundred and thirty kroons. It was a cheapish Ukrainian bottle, but that price is still unheard of in a good restaurant. Yes, I am calling Taverna a good restaurant. The presentation was tasteful yet not over the top in snobbishness. Some of the entrées were a tad on the salty side, but they were filling and enjoyable to eat.

Whenever I go to a restaurant, though, something odd always happens to me regarding my order, service, and so on. I am a magnet for the bizarre. Perhaps this is what coaxed me into starting this blog. My tradition for dining on our anniversary is to order fish. Usually salmon. (Remember, the l in “salmon” is silent!) When the dinners began to arrive, I was left hungry. Again. Just like in Pierre.

Krista eventually approached to inform me that there had been a mistake in the kitchen. Instead of my breaded salmon cut, the salmon pasta had been prepared. I could have that, if I wanted, or I could wait another twenty minutes for the proper meal to be magicked up. “No thank you, I would like the food I ordered,” I firmly stated. Any restaurant in the States would have given me something for free from the menu, or comped the whole meal. This is not the States, however, so I did not expect it. “Never let a customer leave unhappy” is, however, something it would be wise for all Estonian businesses to learn. Competition is tight right now. Every customer counts.

The fish was very good when it arrived, even though there was a gigantic piece of dill on the plate. But the food made up for my extra half hour of hunger. I didn’t want a problem on such a special night. And hell, I even left a tip, because Krista was sometimes hard to find, but she catered to all our wishes, kept her cool and was, well, she treated us like people. We weren’t an annoyance to her, like in so many other local restaurants, despite the customer being the reason the waitress has a job in the first place. I did feel bad though, because out of all twenty people who came, I was the only one to leave a tip.

Everyone else also complimented the food. Not exquisite, but for the price I will definitely not complain, and I will definitely continue to dine there. And order pizzas. The combinations of toppings are very Estonian, but here it works. Pearl onions, pork and the Holy Trinity of Tartu—blue cheese, pineapple and red bell pepper. My favorite is the Caribica. If you order the family size, you should understand that the thick crust is usually a bit raw in the middle. Better to order two larges or smalls. There is no medium. Other local pizzerias offer medium, large and maxi. There’s no small. Slight mathematical misunderstanding there.

Taverna is on Town Hall Square, immediately across the street from the bridge. The new outdoor seating appears attractive, but when we were there Tartu had just been drenched by a storm. Upon leaving, we saw the staff drying off tables and chairs, rather than letting the air do its thing over the course of several hours, like so many other outdoor cafés do. The other thing I liked was that we had ordered a large meal, on par with or perhaps better than places such as Atlantis, and definitely as mouth-watering to look at, for much less than half the price.

We also saw a double rainbow over the river, a fine view from the outdoor seating. After visiting a bar for a final drink, our friends and we all parted ways, thanking each other for an enjoyable evening. “Why didn’t you want to have a romantic dinner, just the two of you?” we were repeatedly asked. Because we already know what we have in each other. It’s not that we wanted to flaunt our happiness in front of our friends, it’s that we wanted our friends to be happy with us. A wedding itself, and the anniversaries that hopefully follow, are merely symbolic. We have no wish to celebrate a symbol. Celebrate happiness. Celebrate the fact that up until this point at least, you have someone to love, and that both of you together have the wisdom and patience to continue to have someone to love.

But that’s just how we feel. Marriage, partnership and relationships in general mean different things to different people. I would never feel that my marriage is threatened, for example, by two atheist men who want to get married for love, or by two Christians who get divorced because of adultery. That’s a way of thinking I will never understand. “Why get married at all?” a man may ask who celebrates traditional folk music in Viljandi every year. “It’s pointless. My partner and I have been together for twenty years, we made a family. We’re not married.” Yeah, well, I won’t say you’re wrong, but marriage is every bit a tradition as eating blood sausage by a tree you cut down from the forest and stuck in your living room.

From a certain point of view, you could say that the only successful relationships are those that end in the unintentional death of one or the other person involved. People do get divorced in their seventies and eighties. When I reach that age, I will chuckle when I hear an old octogenarian friend say through his dentures, “I broke up with my girlfriend.”

A fitting and bizarre end to the evening: on our way home, all the street lights were off, and as we reached our building, we saw dark figures moving around, hiding in our doorway, then sprinting across the street. They rolled on the grass, hid behind cars and aimed their assault rifles at us. I approached one and asked why he was pointing a gun at passersby. “It’s a training exercise,” Private Kristjan explained. I asked him if it would have perhaps been a good idea to let people know that the Estonian Armed Forces would be hiding under their windows that night. “It was on television and the radio.” I didn’t see any posters in the neighborhood for people who don’t watch television or listen to the radio. But at that moment, I felt our neighborhood was very safe. I carried Mrs. Mingus over the threshold of our door without looking over my shoulder.