I am thankful for a lot of things, really. Like having enough money to give myself a treat after a reasonably crappy day at work. And what treat did I have enough money to give myself, you may well ask?
Well, I went and had dinner at that venerable Russo-Hainanese institution that serves the best borsch bar none: Shashlik Restaurant. If you’ve been there, you’d know the food’s real good, and you’d immediately forgive the late 70s lighting, the late 70s furnishing, the late 70s crockery and the late 70s waiters.
I’ve heard before about how rude and brusque the waiters at Shashlik were, and I’d like to clarify one thing: the waiters aren’t rude, they’re just Hainanese. They’ll stand around the bar and talk loudly in Russian because they think they’re the best Russian restaurant in town, and they’d be right.
And one of the fabulous things about the brusque borsch serving waiters is that even when there’s a bunch of them talking loudly in Russian at the bar, there’s still a couple of them brusquely pushing borsch, shashlik, and all manner of flambé on squeaky trolleys around the restaurant.
If you were to go there, on the 6th floor of the Far East Shopping Centre (not Far East Plaza, which is the cool and funky place with the funky clothes and the funky people selling funky clothes to funky people), I’d recommend you have the borsch to start with, then the shashlik beef/lamb, and then the flambéed banana/cherry/alaska for dessert, topped off with the best Hainanese Russian kopitiam coffee this side of Ya Kun’s.
I really think this is the best Russian restaurant in town, and I’m not saying this because I’m afraid the Hainanese waiters might flambée my backside if I said otherwise. Dinner was good enough for me to want to dine there again soon, which is significant in itself because before tonight, the last time I dined there must’ve been twenty years ago.
Got dress code one leh
Quite dark, until the flaming trolley comes by
Then they take the stuff off the flaming trolley onto your table: Banana Flambé
The coffee’s nosso good if you’re expecting espresso
Must be nice to the waiters, else they flambée your backside
Surf stop: Majulah Singapura’s Journal
iTunes Party Shuffle is playing a copy of Smoke from the album “Whatever And Ever Amen” by Ben Folds Five
Technorati Tags: food, Russian, Hainanese, Singapore, Shashlik
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