THURSDAY - Lunch at Gogol Mogol

THURSDAY - Our friend Bill took off early from his job today and took us on the metro to one of his favorite lunch spots called Gogol Mogol. The place was intimate, friendly, and for a couple tourists from Iowa, felt quintessentially Russian.







We started off with an appetizer of fried camembert, dressed with a little extra virgian olive oil and a great berry sauce on the side. The camembert was an aged variety (not soft or runny as I normally expect Camembert to be) and was just warmed, slightly chewy-soft and buttery. The berry sauce was a perfect match, though I'm not completely sure what it was. Sort of like lingon berry jam. Maybe it was something pomegranate.







Lots of places sell juices here and I'm not normally excited about this, but Bill ordered an apple one, and it was a freshly juiced apple, smelled wonderful and I had to have one too. Delicious and a great pick me up for jet lagged Americans.





After this, a Greek salad came for Jeri that was sort of like a chopped salad - not big on greens, but slices of cucumber, tomato, red onion, and slabs of feta cheese. It was lightly dressed with a vinegarette. Jeri said this was awesome and the best Greek salad she'd ever had.

We all had some fantastic pumpkin soup after this, smooth and surprisingly thin, but richly flavored, dressed with cream. A few toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) were tossed on top. Yummy!







Entrees arrived, and I had a pan-seared sole seasoned with some kind of anise flavor, some spinach on the side, carrots, a sort of quinelle shaped hash-brown (actually, more like a flat egg-shape), and the sole was lightly dressed with a light yellow-orange sauce with just-cooked, small-dice pumpkin. Very delicate in flavor. The spinach (I'm not much of spinach fan) was unremarkable, but then I tried it with the sole and the two were made for each other, delicious!





Bill had a hammered loin of pork wrapped around a cheese and red pepper filling; he gracious shared some, very delicious as well.







Dessert was coffee and some small chocolates. It is very unusual to find anywhere in Moscow that we've been so far what is termed American coffee here. Usually cappuccino or espresso or other coffee shop things are served. Even when you get an American coffee, it's very dark roast and very like an espresso. Always served with sugar and the sugar is a perfect match to the rich flavor.


We ordered two cognac truffles (folks out there who've had my pink champange truffles... it's cognac in there) and they were a little grainy, really fudgey and not quite what I was expecting.

The triangle shaped item pictured here is called somnambulant (btw, if you're a fan of German existenialism, you prolly remember the film, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? and the sleepwalker act - The Somnambulist? I couldn't resist ordering it just cuz of that.) anyway, somnambulant was chocolate chock-full of minced walnuts and minced lemon zest. Wonderful!