Muse back!
July 18, 2008 / Friday
Van Tour!
Thursday evening brought us another visit with Sergey, the guide from the boat tour who knows everything about the history of the city. The company sent a van to pick us up, then meet Sergey and pick him up. We went from palace to statue to church to palace to statue to... well, you get the idea. I took pictures (I'll post them later) while Sergey told us stories about the people and history behind the various sites we visited.
As we walked by Stroganoff Palace, we heard about how Beef Stroganoff was born. Granted, there are various versions of the story, but this one was particularly captivating. I don't remember it word for word, but I'll try to capture the gist of it here.
One evening, Count Stroganoff was hosting a bunch of other rich guests, and they were each claiming that they had the best chef. Stroganoff stated that his was definitely the best, and that he could prove it. A bet was made. He called for his chef, and told him that he had bet that he was the best chef in the world. "Of course," said the chef. "Cook us something to prove it," the count replied. "What have you got?" "I have only these gloves." And with that, the count handed the chef his gloves.
They chatted and ate, and after a few hours, Count Stroganoff called for the chef again. "Do you remember my bet?" "Yes." "When will we see the dish?" "You've already had it." The chef had managed to serve a pair of leather gloves without anyone noticing.
As the story goes, he did this by slicing the glove leather into very thin slices. And today, that is the secret to good Stroganoff: thinly sliced beef.
There are other stories about how the dish came to be, but this sure was a good one!
We also heard more stories about assassinations and assassination attempts. We saw where Tchaikovsky delivered his final symphony before succumbing to cholera, and the apartment where Dostoevsky lived when he died. Lots of death, eh? That's history for you.
We didn't end up going to dinner until around 10, and by then I was starving. I'd been reading every sign I could the entire evening with increasing success, right up until my brain started running out of fuel. Transliteration stopped, and Cyrillic became completely incomprehensible to me. I guess I really am focusing hard to learn all these letters!
Dinner was at trendy Terrassa, in the heart of Nevsky Prospekt. It's located at the top of Ginza Project, a posh shopping center, and offers a mostly-from-above view of Kazan Cathedral next door. They serve various types of cuisine, and even have Asian cooks to match the dim sum and sushi sections of the menu. I had chicken schnitzel, along with a super tasty goat cheese and pear salad. Dessert was mango-passion fruit mousse. Really, it felt and tasted like going to a trendy restaurant back in California. Well, except that there was a professional photographer and cigarette girls roaming around.
Speaking of cigarettes, I'm finding that a lot of restaurants here have cigarettes and cigars on their menus. The Demidoff menu actually had pagefuls of cigar pictures. Oh, and of course, almost everybody smokes. Fortunately, they tend to go outside to do it, so I haven't been inhaling too much of the stuff since my arrival here.
Got back to the apartment after midnight again. At least we got to start an hour later the next morning. Oh, sweet sleep.
July 18, 2008 04:54 AM | St. Petersburg