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The Asia RestaurantFirstly, that celebrated pair of bon appetit bankers, Deb Boyer and Niel Isbrandsten braved the dark Ulaanbaatar streets alone. You will remember that Deb & Niel came along to our Thai By Rail experience. A better set of finely tuned stomachs could not have been found in order to bring you one half of this review. Then Doug visited the same restaurant in the company of one of his favourite people, Kristi Hogan from the US Embassy. It was Kristi's next to last evening in Ulaanbaatar, so the evening was a combined farewell to a fond friend of all, and an audit on the scallywag bankers' activities. NAME: The Asia Restaurant TYPE: Russian HOURS: Lunches and dinners LOCATION: Shel & Doug try to be a little obscure with their location description, just to add to the romance of your evening as you battle to find our choices. In this case, we don't have to meddle with Niel's honest attempt at directions. Here it is verbatim, and the best of luck to you as you try and find the Asia!! Asia is on Sukhbaatar Street at the corner of the ring road. Sukhbaatar Street is the north-south road that borders the west side of Sukhbaatar Square; both the Chinggis Brewery and the Children's Palace are on it -- they are just on the north side of the ring road. Asia is on the south east corner of the ring road intersection - about 50 meters south of the intersection. APPEARANCE AND AMBIANCE: Your regular scullery scribes will only comment on the weird hanging thingos at the main doorway. Entering the Haunted House at the County Fair would be a fair analogy. Now to hand to Deb & Niel: With embassies to the south and east, Asia Restaurant is in a quiet neighborhood where it must make its own fun. The interior of the Asia is quietly clean and neat, with nicely coordinated table cloths and chair covers, and handsome fake ivy over wood lattice separating the entrance from the dining area. The green decor was also accented by a single red lampshade casting a glow in one corner that might of led us to believe there was some other untoward activity at work here, but we saw no evidence of anything other than quiet dining going on at 9 pm on a Sunday night. The interior isn't the only neat and attractive feature. The Russian waitresses are also squeaky clean and attractive in their short skirts and tiny waists. Service from our waitress was attentive and you could hardly tell there were no men with which to flirt.
ATTENDANCE: Over to The Independent Consultant Celebrity Guests, who seemed to hit on a far more interesting night: By 9:30 pm there were several tables occupied and the stereo was playing quietly. The sign by the door declared this a karaoke destination and the center of the floor was clear of tables, leading us to think that perhaps other nights of the week might be a bit more lively. Niel reported spotting a younger crowd hanging about the outside door on Saturday night. One at least sported a nose ring. Perhaps we need to try another night to see if we uncover another version of the Asia Restaurant. All we had was another table occupied and the stereo doing endless Russian polkas (although we are not complaining - it added immensely to the atmosphere). MENU: The ICCGs' description is more than adequate and accurate: As soon as we were seated, our waitress quietly insisted that we order a salad. She pointed at the first page of the menu where there was a long list of salads well described in Russian. Niel and I spent an entertaining 20 minutes trying to recall enough Russian vocabulary with which to order. We were doing pretty well when we noticed there were two more sections to the menu - Mongolian and English - all on their own color coded pages. Unfortunately, the Russian to English sections didn't match, with more options appearing on the Russian pages and the English items definitely in a different order. It didn't matter, because our waitress couldn't read or understand enough of the English for us to use it for ordering. At least the English section gave us enough clues to the meaning of the Russian menu items for us to make a few good guesses. Deb & Niel may have noticed that all prices on the English menu were crossed out, but remained on the Russian version. FOOD: First - the ICCGs' description: I don't think it really matters what you order. The food was all good. I had a corn, tomato, chicken, and pineapple salad, lightly tossed with mayonnaise (as any good Russian salad should be) and it was very tasty. Being a hot day neither Niel nor I could face much in the way of hot foods, but my pilaf was tasty and the portions hearty.
Carrying on the grand tradition of Shel & Doug, and ordering and eating far too much in our quest to give our readers as full a description as possible, Doug, Kristi and Kherlen really went to town with the full three course deal.
Here is Kristi with two of the soups. Her borsch (adjudged magnificent), and Doug's "Soup with pickled cucumber". Spot the cucumber…..can't? There wasn't any. Piles of onions and very tasty, though. Kherlen's chicken noodle soup was thick and wolfed down. Doug's "Tomatoes stuffed with mushrooms" was a very attractive and painstakingly created affair. The re-capped red ripe tomatoes from which oozed a creamy mushroom sauce was deserving of a photo. But unfortunately tasted as this the whole dish was grey. Kristi loved her "Summer Salad" - we suspect it is Deb's nicely described dish. Kherlen had the stock standard Russian/Mongolia "Potato Salad". Normal. A complete lack of any sort of condiments on the table testified to the fact that most Russian Restaurants believe their food is so tasty it doesn't need beefing up to individual tastes. Kherlen opted for "Pilmeni" as his main course. Doug & Kristi watched with interest to find out what it was. Kristi guessed right and it turned out to be a type of "small buurz". Kristi went for the traditional "Cabbage Roll". To her pleasant surprise and totally against expectations, it was not greasy and very, very tasty. A winner. Doug, with his heart in his mouth ordered "Kierski Chop - Minced Meat Fried In Klfor". We never discovered what Klfor was, but the bread-crumbed mince and mashed potatoes was a nice dish. HYGEINE: Nothing untoward noticed. However, despite the fact that a total of 5 of us compiled this report, no-one seems to have either visited or reported upon the toilet facilities. As the sternest judge of this aspect of our dining diversions, perhaps Shel will provide a supplementary report when he visits. COST: The killer. Kristi, Kherlen and Doug had three courses, as described. Plus a beer or two each. Doug had his heart in his mouth, as this was his shout for Kristi's "Last Supper". The total bill of 12,000 Tugriks means that any more farewells that he stumps for with his mates will be held at the Asia Restaurant. A great meal at a great price. Who said cheap dining in UB was dead?? RATING: 3.8 OUT OF 5. FOOTNOTE: Kristi relates the story of the opening night at the Asia, when the rating may well have fallen through the floor, had your Regular Reviewers been present. To start with, the food was apparently well, well below the standard we now enjoy. A Mongolian Opera Singer wearing a dress the size of a circus tent created havoc as she sashayed around the room, singing and knocking glasses of wines from tables. A rock band was also part of the Grand Opening Floor Show. The place is not big, and the rock band was of the heavy-metal, head banging sort that busted eardrums and rendered conversation impossible. However, the highlight of the evening was the Russian stripper who decided that the Russian Orthodox priest needed to have his glasses steamed up and spent most of her dance writhing directly in front of him. To everybody's acute embarrassment, including his wife who was present as well. But little glitches such as that seem to have been rectified, and the Asia Restaurant is now a place that you can safely take your priest and wife, and have a nice quiet conversation with good food and at a cheap price. Recommended. And a fine farewell to Kristi, now departed for her home state of California for a touch up on the tan before heading to her next posting at Tunisia.
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Well, there were two men on our Audit Night. We detected no flirting (and if we did, this is a family column, so we would be gentlemen). Our waitress for the evening was of the "I speek only a leeetle Eeengleesh" type, but was very good and solicitous. Close to a perfect 10.
Well, there were two men on our