Amp up the heat at diminutive Jackie Chan; impress a client or a date at hip new bar-cafe.
I must first confess to you, dear reader: the word “fusion” rankles me. When applied to cuisine as liberally as it has been over the past fifteen years, the term holds about as much meaning today as the phrase “alternative music.” It seems a restaurant can call itself fusion simply by stuffing varenyks with wasabi or making borshch dumplings from foie gras. Ingredients from disparate cultures have often been kept separate for good reason. Creativity aside, the melange must inevitably make sense in your mouth.
So I was already suspicious when entering Truffle, the new self-proclaimed “fusion cafe-bar” located up a curving flight of stairs in the maw of Arena’s massive courtyard. But it became almost impossible to remain wary once the doors whispered shut behind. In the capital it’s not too often that a restaurant manages to furnish itself both in luxury and class. But there wasn’t a single off note in the decor or the service that greeted me and my guest. With hushed muted tones that invoke the sea and invite relaxation, we were gently ushered to our table. Handed no less than four different menus, the endless wine list and nice selection of hard-to find beers such as Chimay, Palm and Leffe, may make the most difficult part of your meal choosing what to drink.
For Truffle, “fusion” means a mix of European and Asian ingredients and techniques, with a good measure of the chef’s own flights of fancy included. And the results here are most often positive. With the characteristically dizzying dinner options for a restaurant in this price range, you might want to ask the ever-present wait staff hovering always just out of view to suggest something. And while the dishes can certainly run toward the high end in spots, many surprisingly cost below Hr 75. The titular truffle menu obviously contains the priciest fare, with a plate of salmon carpaccio with sliced truffles topping the list at Hr 350. However, the management understands that not all of us just closed lucrative oil and gas deals – they’re willing to serve half portions of much of the choicer fare. We enjoyed the “Duck Tale” (Hr 95), six sizzled slices of tender breast drizzled with a cranberry sauce that luckily escapes the common trap of being either too bitter or too sweet. The rice with vegetables, egg and chicken (Hr 30) was a solidly prepared side: high-quality flecks of flesh and solid yolk dotting a small squat cone of brown rice. Our veal with crocotau (Hr 47) certainly used succulent strips of calf, but we found the sauce a bit too intrusively saccharine. One stumble, however, in a litany of success. Speaking of which, make sure to check out the bathrooms. Half Cronenberg and half Kubrick, the walls are painted chrome with large stencils of black insects. Odd choice for a business dealing with food – but it works.
If you’re looking to stuff your face with hearty cheap Ukrainian fare (as I often like to do), Truffle is obviously not the spot. But if you want to impress a potential business client or date, this new place is certain to make an impression.
TRUFFLE
Arena Citi, new entrance, second floor, 492-1622
Open daily from 11:00 until last client
English menu: Yes
English-speaking staff: Yes
Average price of main dish: Hr 100
Red Hot China
As diminutive in size and powerful in flavor as its namesake, Chinese restaurant Jackie Chan can be easily overlooked. Set back from the street and located just below ground level, you have to look hard for the paper lanterns and Asian archway that frame its entrance (so hard, in fact, that my taxi driver soon grew weary of driving up and down the street at night in the demoralizing rain listening to some starving American explain in broken Russian that he was just sure it was around here somewhere). Simply put, however, and despite the odds: it’s well worth the search.
Eschewing the banquet-hall style and illogically high prices of many ethnic restaurants in town, Jackie Chan offers only eight tables, several of which are likely to be filled with a promising sight: Chinese locals. The decor also foregoes the common “Asian Disney” kitsch, decorating their walls instead with small Chinese fans and a few Eastern paintings.
But, large or small, gaudy or minimal, I never judge a place by its wallpaper. Put simply, the food is why you should come. At first glance the menu boasts some of the most inadvertently humorous English translations in town. “The cucumber mixed the beef” implies wonderfully anthropomorphic ingredients quite agreeably preparing themselves, while “Aborigines in fish taste” offers an image of a large vat filled with Australia’s indigenous population slowly being covered in shrimp paste (they mean eggplant, of course. Some overzealous English-language version of Microsoft Word must’ve taken it upon itself to give aubergines an entirely different meaning).
In fact, why not start with a simple plate of “fried aborigines” (Hr 28), thick slabs of eggplant mixed with pliable wedges of red pepper and onion, and all swimming along in a rather accomplished brown sauce. Move next to that Chinese mainstay, Kung-Pao chicken (Hr (30). The sauce has the appropriate level of spice, the chunks of fowl are tender, and the peanuts provide a welcome change of consistency amidst their softer compatriots. But there’s no reason just to stick with what you know: the menu is extensive and heartwarmingly traditional – such exotics as pig’s tongue and chicken stomachs share the same page with less intrepid selections of fried rice and egg foo young. There’s even a full selection of Ukrainian food listed in the back, though it would seem a bit counterintuitive to come here for varenyks.
Most importantly, however, the restaurant understands spice. I am a proud masochist when it comes to my desired chili level, and Jackie Chan delivers up easily one of the most scorching dishes in town. “Fried pork with piquancy” (Hr 36) is aptly named: little strips of tender pig laced with numerous chilies that, in both shape and flavor, provide livid red daggers of heat. This is not for weak palates. And after sweating out half your body mass with the catharsis only capsicum can provide, revive yourself with the wonderful loose-leaf fresh brewed green tea on offer. Yes, it’s true: Other Chinese restaurants in the capital might offer slightly higher quality ingredients and certainly plate their dishes with more of a nod towards presentation, but for the low price and total absence of shtick, Jackie Chan is a great place for a good meal.
JACKIE CHAN
16 Dimitriva, 289-8611
Open daily from
English menu: Yes
English-speaking staff: NoAverage price of main dish: Hr 30
