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Editor's Pick: Porto Maltese

Editor's Pick: Porto Maltese
Nautical but nice....

By Jennifer Fell

There’s a great icebed with fish buried under the icechips and half a wooden dinghy covered with salads constituting the salad bar. Three long dining decks, rustic, wooden and simple run like galleys running far into a ship’s hull filled with people. On arrival, bread was brought to the table (100Rbl), one a rich dark loaf with whole olives and the other a nondescript white. The homemade wine goes for very reasonably priced 420Rbl a litre, which my companion quickly snapped up a glass of. White wine, naturally. Beer options weren’t so numerous but their Carlsberg did very nicely.

With the initial pleasantries out of the way, we were then swept up in the all important activity of choosing and weighing the different merits of each fish, displayed in their white icebox. Like a child in a sandbox, our waiter rummaged in the ice hauling out first a red fish, then a little black one, then a long flat one, then a chunk of another. All fish except the monkfish (in Russian Morskoy Chort or Sea Devil) are sold whole and being just two people, we were conscious of not taking more than we could feasibly eat. But there weren’t many small fish…

In the end, although its skin looked like as wrinkly as an elephants, we opted for a couple of steaks of the monk fish (315Rbl per 100gm). We also took a small Barabulka (Red Mullet), described by our waiters and the chef who had came to give their two rubles of advice as an iodine rich fish which tastes a bit weird. Never mind, we thought, that sounds healthy and it’s a small one so, perfect for us! We also took another flat fish which was also on the smaller size, just as we forgot the name of it, so the waiters forgot to add it to our bill. The fish and seafood are charged by the pre-cooked 100gm weight. The chef approved our choices and told us they’d be cooked with a bit of garlic in the pan.

Sorted then, we sat down again and waited. For starters, we selected the Cous-cous salad with seafood and my companion took the brushcetta. My large serving of couscous could have done with less octopus and more spices. The extra lemon and seasoning I added improved things remarkably. The brushcetta didn’t scrimp on the serving size or the garnish, served on a gigantic garden bed of lettuce. It was, however, quite garlicky. From one of our ex-Belgrad waiters, we learned that all the produce is flown in on a plane from the Mediterranean, three times a week. A serving table was set up next to our table and a waiter appeared with our chosen fish which he served up on to our plates. Skilfully done, the service was casual yet personal at the same time.

The monkfish was by far the best and so it should have been, coming out at 2555Rbl for the pleasure of this one robust and meaty fish. The barabulka being small had absorbed the oil and was now like a crunchy little fish bite resulting in a very modest 285Rbl. Coffee and some large desserts followed, served at the same time thankfully. The profiteroles drowning in their rich chocolate sauce were better than the Tiramisu but both were sweet enough to finish the meal adequately.
 
Food – 7.5
Service – 8.5Atmosphere – 7Interior – 7.5Total Cost – 4539Rbl

174 Nevsky pr., 271 76 77
Metro: Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo
Open 12:00 - 24:00

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