The restaurant critic accidentally compares two Chaikhana Pakhvala

Part one

I was heading somewhere else entirely — ProVKUS on Bolsheokhtinsky, which is a separate story, but eating there didn't work out. I started looking for a replacement and found nothing nearby except the cluster of places at Okhta Mall — such is the district. Very well: I looked up where I hadn't been the longest — Chaikhana Pakhvala, 2019, which back then earned no stars.

Not a hostess, a problem. In an empty establishment with several hundred covers, terrace or no terrace, she leads you to one specific table and seats you there. Have they not learned the words "where would you be more comfortable", "I can show you all four parts of the room", "we have a big and beautiful place"? To a man who says at once "the menu, please, not the set lunch", and who says, having looked over the offered spot: "Ugh, the middle." A battered table top, light like a decorative lamp, a sofa.

THANK HEAVEN a normal waitress came over and gladly offered me one of the remaining 270 seats. Two hundred and seventy times I have said that hostesses are not interested in a guest's comfort, unlike the waiters who get their tips for the way they behave — and that this is a threat to the business! I was ready to walk out and would have left no money at all, six times more than the set lunch (from 390 ₽) that absolutely everyone around me was eating. For simple human kindness, for the right questions along the way, I'm ready to forgive other things. Even a dirty plate standing for ten minutes while people walked past it ten times, and at the next table a record thirty-five minutes of boredom after the guest had paid. I even asked what had happened: "Yes, we're not coping."

The restaurant is tired, obviously and in many ways: from the lavatory to those very table tops. It has also stopped fighting the price echelon: a Georgian vegetable salad at 800 ₽, kharcho at 720 ₽ — nobody would call that especially democratic. Ordinary, a touch above average, and one would still rather pay 720 ₽ for lagman and 1,400 ₽ for lamb shashlik in a pleasant place. The photographs are only from where I sat — a guest sees what he is "shown". For him that is the restaurant. In which the menu, of course, is not a chaikhana's: sushi, rolls, Caesar, borscht, carbonara, alongside the thematic dishes. But a family restaurant in a shopping centre, even under a "Chaikhana" sign, holds its concept with difficulty: I understand it all. Lemonade 380 ₽ for half a litre, and really excellent; mors 220 ₽; tea from 420 ₽ for 0.5; coffee from 190 ₽; house wine from 375 ₽.

Tashkent salad (520 ₽). A large portion — I have started to grow unused to the once-standard two hundred grams. I like everything, including the meat-to-radish proportion. The only thing: the proportion with the "light mayonnaise" is too light — a touch dry, not succulent, not bound together. The onion rings are large, too, rather than a crisp scattering over the egg. Tasty all the same.

Tashkent plov (750 ₽) smells like a five out of five, and the meat is a five. The rest is a four: about half the butter it needs, and butter is the carrier of flavour. Hence it is dryish, not succulent, not dark: the spices are there, but they must be allowed to open up. Probably good, certainly not the worst for a chain family place, but it could simply be made better. By simple means.

Meringue roll with cherry (490 ₽). Even a family restaurant in a mall can earn two Boris stars if it has six dishes like this. Huge, almost double in weight. The only comparable surprise, I think, was the strudel at Oktoberhaus. They bring it and you mutter a thank-you to yourself. And it isn't merely big, it is gorgeous. The chic, the shock of being the best in a couple of years: light, fluffy, tender, brilliant, sweet in its own particular measure. Bravo. If you love rolls — buy a ticket. My photograph didn't come out; I asked the restaurant for one. What's attached isn't mine, but it does it justice!

Part two

Whom to compare it with, since it turned out this way and I began handing out praise and non-praise to Pakhvala? The restaurant in the Leto mall, where I also hadn't been for a long time — 2022.

A completely different, pleasant welcome. Sunny from the first moment! Perhaps it isn't the young lady's kindness but the Saturday, with no set-lunch rush to wear the staff out? A different room. This one has a hookah zone, but at this size you don't notice it. Clearly it was built later: fresher, roomier, the exact opposite impression — I breathe more freely here, I'm more comfortable. Interestingly, some prices are lower: the Tashkent, for instance, costs 480 ₽. The menu is different, of course — here it's a double format with the Serbs from Vkusnovitsa — but the eastern part has been carried over neatly, with its hits!

An unexpectedly top-class lagman (720 ₽): expensive by comparison, but better this way. The crockery is craft, inspiring respect and raising the qualities of the dish: tastes differ, but everyone will appreciate this! The broth, while remaining a broth, is dense and fragrant; everything in it has left its stamp — meat, happiness, vegetables. One of the best of the year!

Cheburek with lamb (460 ₽). On the one hand, the thinnest pastry, very nearly a record — you understand at once that you must pick it up carefully; plenty of broth, not empty but full of meaning; plenty of filling too, and well seasoned. But there is no crunch at all: you deflate the pastry like a balloon, with the same sensation on your fingers. And from a cheburek you want rather less pliancy, more texture. Was the oil badly heated because it was the very start of the day?

Lyulya kebab, beef and pork (780 ₽). Surprised by the size — two skewers, not one little stick as at Gaby or the latest chaikhanas, and that at a stated 130 grams in all. Tastes differ, but absolutely everyone will appreciate this. Thank you. Not heavily charred, but of excellent texture, juicy, and ideal on spices. If I were to advise — no, rather, if I were to broadcast a wish — it would only concern the garnishes. Korean-style carrot, cucumber and a superb sauce are all good, but the brain asks to draw a tomato into the picture. I understand food cost and economics, but some things stimulate the important points in the head.

Clearly this summer Leto won. On the sum of impressions. With a star earned by that one of the three — an article can carry only one verdict. I'm not sure I need the third branch, the Zhemchuzhny one.