Riga: Esplanade at the Reval Hotel Latvija

55 Elizabetes Iela, Riga
www.revalhotels.com

Riga is proving to be very much an emotional seesaw for me (the tablets must have stopped working). I hated this place yesterday, but the Kabuki experience changed my mind somewhat. Today, I woke up and the sun was shining, so I went out and saw all the places that yesterday’s weather discouraged me from visiting. It’s amazing what a little sunshine can do for a place. I started the day by visiting Mentzendorff’s House, a merchant’s house dating originally from the 17^th century, and furnished according to tastes from various periods through its history. Nice house, furnished moderately well, but suffering from the same severe faces I had encountered the previous day.

I next visited the city market – the Centrs Tirgus. This was a enormous change from the glass-covered mall in the old town where I’d taken refuge from the elements and the inhabitants the previous day. Aside from strips of little outdoors stalls strung along the marketplace in rows, it consists of two large pavilions: one with meat, fish and poultry as far as the eye can see or the nose can smell, and another which sold everything from medicines and books to olives and ajvar. Such a contrast also to yesterday’s breakfast at the Hotel Riga: I was able to pick up sausages in pastry for 22 santīmu- that’s about 33 cent! Best of all were the cake stands: fragile-looking French-style delicacies, of the sort that sells in Dublin for over €4, cost less than 20 santīmu each. Astonishing. This is also obviously where the older people of Latvia shop for clothes: it was full of elderly people choosing from budget-priced goods like shoes for 5 lats, or leather jackets of the type worn mainly by circus gypsies. It was striking that there were so few young people there: the anecdotal evidence, borne out in real life, of whole sections of the population upping sticks and moving to Ireland and the UK since the mid-nineties. The whole market was a Soviet legacy to a post-Communist society, but at least there actually was at least one place in Riga where pensioners could shop without fear of ensuing penury.

After a longer-than-planned visit to the Riga Dom, there was just time enough to pick up some hand-blown Latvian glass and put into effect my plan for lunch. Walking up past the Freedom Monument, where I saw a forty-ish couple with a young child lay a wreath of white flowers with red contrast in a suspiciously swastika-like formation, I arrived at the Hotel Latvija. I had been here before: on Friday, when I first arrived, I checked into my own hotel, then walked up the street, in the rain, to check out the Skyline Bar in the Latvija. This lounge is accessed by a glass lift, rising 26 floors over Riga and providing panoramic views of the city. I knew then that I would have to come back and assess the restaurant.

The Restaurant Esplanade is situated on the ground floor of the Latvija, just to the left of the main entrance. I was seated promptly, and took in the environs - and I loved them. I don’t normally fill blog entries with photos, but this time the urge to share is overwhelming. Look at these surroundings! An ornate Orthodox cathedral and a park outside the window I was facing; pristine white linen tablecloths dotting a large, airy, unenclosed space; orange and pink drapes that somehow manage to be tasteful and not in the least garish; and a baby grand piano on a dais just to my left. The sun filled the area, and I knew this was going to be a good experience.

The menu proved to be what I would term “high-class Baltic”, and is not unlike the food on offer at some of the outstanding Stockholm restaurants William and I discovered in the summer of 2001 – I’m thinking specifically of Sturehof, T/Bar or Restaurang J. I decided to order a white Martini as an aperitif (a steal at LVL 1.60), and took no time in deciding what to order.

Deciding to go all the way, I chose caviar to begin. Now, in truth this was what sushi-lovers would know as ikura rather than Caspian Beluga, but it was like a masterclass exercise in how to produce a starter: four blinis, finely-chopped red onion, mustard seeds, crème fraîche, and a healthy portion of salmon roe with a lemon wedge combined to provide a sensation to titillate the taste buds that has rarely been equalled in recent times. The first taste gave me the same feeling as when you drive very quickly over a small hill: you feel like you’re flying in the air and that while your body descends afterwards, you remain on high as you seek to catch up with reality. I was enjoying this food so much that it actually spurred me to visit Stockmann later to buy some Latvian caviar to take home with me. [Personal aside: how is it that I can buy prepared vitello tonnato in a Finnish supermarket in Latvia (disproving Silvio Belrusconi and Jacques Chirac's theories on Finnish food, at a minimum), yet I can't even find the basic ingredient of veal in any supermarket in Dublin? Now, back to the story.]

Continuing the theme of gastronomic excellence, I ordered soup: this was a fashionably-foamy crayfish-rich and saffron-infused potage, on which were resting two diamonds of toast bearing a large crayfish tail each. It was a delectable dish: creamy to taste, with the continuing seafood thread and taste commenced by the caviar. I was really loving this. As the waitress cleared my plate, I ordered a glass of Leopard’s Leap wine – a Cape Mountain white, with tropical fruit and lime tones – to accompany the forthcoming main course, and took another trip to the Skyline Bar to enjoy the Latvian vista expanding as the glass elevator rose higher.

On my return, I had time for a couple more pages of Barack Obama’s book - which has been accompanying me everywhere recently – and then my main course arrived. This was a breast and a leg of pheasant, served with carrots, green asparagus and baby courgettes. The meat was probably slightly drier than I would have, and the gamey taste less pronounced than I had expected, but it was tasty nonetheless.

By this time, I was consulting my watch a little too often, as I needed to get to the Jewish Museum of Riga before it closed. I had my bill presented, and was thrilled to see that the whole meal, including drinks, cost an equivalent of €34. What a delight! I was back on the old Riga seesaw: now I loved the place. But wait …

Here’s a tip for anyone who might think it’s now all sweetness and light in Latvia. Nothing to do with the Reval, or food: just a tip for the unsuspecting tourist. Riga taxi drivers generally look like gangsters, but engage in worse extortion rackets. The taxi from the airport to town will cost you approximately LVL 7 (about EUR 10). On the way back, I was fleeced for nearly LVL 15. I ate the head off the driver, but he didn't care. When you're in an Eastern bloc country, you have to remember that corruption reigns - and the police wouldn't care about one foreigner. I took this taxi from outside the Hotel Riga - a travesty to have that place rated as a 4-star hotel - and now that I think about it, I don't remember a taxi light on the top of the car. Riga in general is not a rewarding place to visit, and the taxi rip-off just makes you want to get out of there as quickly as possible. Get the hotel to ring for a taxi - there's a slight chance you won't be robbed blind. Otherwise, take the bus - it costs just LVL 0.30. There's just one certainty in all this mess: make sure that if you do travel to Riga, you stay at the Reval Latvija and you eat at the Esplanade.

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The Damage (LVL)

• 5.75 Red Caviar
• 3.55 Crayfish and Saffron soup
• 8.95 Pheasant with baby vegetables
  

Drinks

• 1.60 Martini Bianco
• 1.40 Perrier (33cl)
• 2.40 Leopard's Leap Cape Mountain white

Service 4.35
Total 28.00
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The Score
5.0 Food and Drink
4.5 Service
5.0 Décor
4.5 Ambience
4.5 Value
5.0 Overall Rating

Riga: Kabuki

14 Audeju Iela, Riga

www.sushi.lv

Hold the front page! News in from Latvia: while most of it is just as bad as I painted in my last post, it has been partly redeemed just minutes after the last entry was blogged.

I left the internet café like I’d leave a crack den: looking round furtively to see who’d attack me on the way out, and hoping the smell of the interior didn’t cling to me too much. Outside, it was raining: a cold slimy rain that hadn’t relented all day. I tramped through the old cobbled streets, deserted as they had been all day, and turned the corner – in more senses than one.

A block away from my hotel, to which I was headed in the hope of hiding myself away from the sheer misery of the weather, I passed a Japanese restaurant. Given the compact nature of Riga, it was about the fourth time that day I had done so, but the need for some good food I’d recognise drew me inside.

Hallelujah – a modern, clean restaurant where I was welcomed and shown to a table. So unlike the Riga I had experienced to that point; in fact, apart from the fact that the place was absolutely deserted apart from me, there was nothing in common with the rest of the city.

The restaurant is on a street corner, and bounded by floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. I took the table where these panes met, and had a look at the menu. I smiled on seeing that while the first half of the book was taken up with Japanese fare, the second half offered an Italian menu. I assumed that these were just menus that could be transferred between Kabuki and their next door neighbour, Macaroni: a shining example of a post-Soviet demand economy, I thought. Julija, the manager, disabused me of this notion and came to tell me that I was free to order from either menu. I decided to accept this novel challenge, and set about designing an early-evening Eurasian dinner.

The Italian menu drove me towards a beef carpaccio – something I rarely refuse when offered. It was topped with a dressed rocket salad, and the traditional shaved parmesan and lemon juice. Lovely. The rest of my choices came from the Japanese menu: Nagasaki soup – a chilli-spiced mushroom and prawn broth; some individual maki – two Maguro (spicy tuna), two Sake (spicy salmon), and one Sapporo (spicy scallop with flying fish roe and a tangy mayonnaise); and a serving of eight Sakura maki – consisting of salmon, flying-fish roe, crabmeat, avocado, red caviar. These were washed down by a pot of ginger and lime tea, and a bottle of Gerolsteiner sparkling water. I loved every morsel – very, very high quality sushi. Frankly, I was surprised – the previous 20 hours in Riga had prepared me for something worse.

By this time, the restaurant was still bare – there were two more tables occupied out of about fifteen. I decided to give into the temptation of the picture menu and order an amaretto coffee. Interesting touch: a little white chocolate disc on the side, imprinted in colour with the Kabuki logo. Best of all, it came with an interesting, intricate and memorable chat with Julija. As I told her at the time, her conversation was the pivot on which my view of Riga became less negative. Up till then, I had seen more smiles in the Occupation Museum (well worth a visit) than I had on the streets of Riga. Julija was the first person in Latvia who was actually nice to me: the voice of Latvia less often heard, but which had made all the difference.

Kabuki/ Macaroni is evidently positioning itself as trendy and high-end. Although most of Riga seems intent on charging Western European prices, and is obviously aimed at tourists and their foolishness in parting too quickly with their euro, Kabuki is actually worth it. Just remember that the staff are not the ones benefiting from the Western prices.

The Damage (LVL)
from the Macaroni menu:

• 3.95 Beef Carpaccio
  

from the Kabuki menu:

• 3.20 Nagasaki mushroom and prawn soup
• 2.40 Spicy Maguro Maki *2
• 2.40 Spicy Sake Maki *2
• 2.00 Spicy Sapporo Maki *1
• 6.00 Sakura Maki

Drinks

• 2.00 Ginger and Lime tea
  
• 1.00 500ml Gerolsteiner sparkling water
• 2.20 Italian amaretto coffee
  

Service 8.00
Total 33.15
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The Score
4.5 Food and Drink
5.0 Service
4.0 Décor
3.5 Ambience
3.0 Value
4.0 Overall Rating

Riga: Hotel Riga

22 Aspazijas Boulevard, Riga
www.hotelriga.lv

Arrived last night in Latvia - my first time ever in the former Soviet Union. The hotels are still in it, though, I think - God, breakfast was terrible. Dining room decor is like those Communist-era hotels in Prague - orange juice tasted pure 1970s, rest of the food was the sort of shite you tend to get in hotel buffets and wouldn't touch - fatty, reformed meat; cheese of no discernable provenance; wonky fish... I will be eating outside tomorrow morning.

Riga as a city is beautiful, I think - the pictures in the guide books look great, but I can't really see too much behind the blinding sideways freezing rain and sleet. It reminds me of a sadder Zagreb, or a less exciting Luxembourg (no, that's not a typo). I spent two hours in the Occupation Museum - Soviets, then Nazis, then Soviets again. It was actually quite moving to see how many times these people were on the verge of freedom, then got overrun again. Maybe in a few years, they'll have an EU section.

I have already grouped the only people I have seen: the terrified, the hookers, the undead, the skinheads/ goths/ neo-fascists, and the downright obnoxious. You go into a shop and not only do they not come licking your feet like in Banana Republic (a sycophantic practice which I hate anyway, and performed by meretricious sales fairies flapping around the Eaton centre, looking for commissions), but they don't even say hello like in France or grunt at you like in Ireland. I arrived at the hotel last night just after 23:00 (and about 20 minutes after the plane landed - the city is the size of a village), checked in with an unexplainably-nervous receptionist, then got in the lift - where some Chinese-looking 50-year-old bloke speaking Russian, perhaps from somewhere in Central Asia but obviously twisted drunk, asked me if I did kung fu, and then I think he suggested he would wrestle me. All I could think of was that fight in Borat. I go to get out on the 5th floor (I seem to get room 529 in every single hotel I ever check into), and he stands in my way ready for a grapple. So I basically walk over him. Ten minutes later, on my way back out, I see the concierge talking to him and getting ready to kick him out - or go for round two. You'd never be sure in this place.

This morning I went for a sauna before breakfast. You get the door from the foyer unlocked by some porter; you go down a stairs, twice; along a dark, narrow passage like something in a submarine, then another stairs, and finally you go into some sort of party room. The sauna is off this. I realise then that they have sauna parties here. I am on my own, and in 1974. The heat's not too high, when people start coming in. Men, women, not a towel in sight, and all proceed to the top deck of the sauna, where they sit directly on the benches with their knees up round their ears. I am internally contorted by the thoughts of the hygiene issues there. I leave before someone from the party room comes into the sauna and offers cheese and pineapples on cocktail sticks.