Veggie Quest

“Do you have anything for vegetarians?” We were in a café near Viitna and my wife Liina was hungry.

“No!” shouted the woman behind the counter. Shouted, I kid you not.

But Liina could see carrots and beets under the sneeze-guard and just had to point it out. “Couldn’t you just put those on a plate for me?”

“Those are for komplektid,” she sneered, meaning that in order to get a vegetable you had to order a full meal. She turned to the next person in the line, which just happened to be me.

“Don’t you have anything for vegetarians?” I couldn’t let her off without a fight.

By the look on her face you would have thought she’d been asked to gouge out the eyes of her favorite child. What had vegetables ever done to her? Had she been forced to eat beets as a child? Had her stepfather beat her with a sack of potatoes? I can’t say she hated vegetables, but she clearly had something against people who ate them.

“Just replace the meat dish with another vegetable,” Liina surrendered. “You can even charge me the same price.”

I thought that was a pretty good deal for the cafe, but the worker obviously disagreed. She crossed her arms and turned her back. The international signal for Get out of my restaurant.

I should have flashed the toy plastic police badge I keep in my wallet and told her I was closing her restaurant for violation of EU vegetable discrimination laws. I should have reached across the counter, touched her softly on the back, and whispered, “Vegetarians forgive you.” I should have done a lot of things. But those ideas, l’esprit d’escalier, as zee French say, came later. At that moment I was nothing but stunned. What had Liina done but ask for some carrots?

It wasn’t the first time she had been refused service for ordering only vegetables. Being an open vegetarian in the former Soviet Union is tantamount to being a convicted pedophile. At best, you’ll be scorned but served. At worst, you’re at risk for a beating. But usually, without too much of a fuss, you can strike some sort of deal with the restaurant.

The negotiation process can be intense. It often involves a long exchange with the waitress where Liina explains that being a vegetarian means eating vegetables. “Well, we’ve got chicken” inevitably follows, to which Liina replies that that’s meat, too. “What about fish?” Liina then explains that some vegetarians eat fish, but she does not. She eats only vegetables. At this point, the waitress’ memory will fail her and she’ll offer chicken again. After a several minute process, the waitress finally exclaims: “You mean you only eat vegetables?”

Sometimes, the waitress will have read about this phenomenon in a society magazine. She may be aware that Alanis Morrisette or Anne Hathaway are vegetarians. (Rarely will anyone know that Albert Einstein and Rainer Maria Rilke were vegetarians.) If you have a male server, there’s a small chance he’ll know Jenna Jameson, the porn star, is a vegetarian. But usually, even if the rural waiter has heard of vegetarians, he actually hasn’t met one.

If the server happens to be open-minded, Liina often gets a chance to make her vegetarian case. She’ll debunk the myth that you have to eat meat to get protein. She’ll tell how she once got anemic and when doctors blamed her vegetarianism, she proved them wrong and got her iron through beans, lentils, grains, and dairy products. “But you wear leather shoes!” someone always points out. This invites Liina to talk about how we unavoidably kill lower organisms with every step we take, but that she only wants to minimize pain caused to animals. It’s like listening to Gandhi (who, Liina will point out, was also a vegetarian).

It may be difficult to be a vegetarian, but what’s more difficult is being a carnivore husband of a vegetarian. I actually like the cholesterol bombs served in rural Estonian cafes. Every once in a while, I love the classic country fare: a fat-laden kotlet, seapraad, or snitsel. So every time we’re turned away from some greasy stolovaya, sent packing toward a healthier restaurant (or worse, the local grocery store where we’ll have to fix our own), I suffer a little bit, too. More and more, we end up taking our own food to the countryside, which means that, since I’m lazy, I eat whatever Liina prepares, making me a de facto vegetarian.

So as a vegetarian, I’d like to ask all rural café owners reading this to please allow your staff to replace the meat with a vegetable. Even if you don’t give a damn about animals, your profit margins will be higher. And you’ll sell one more karbonaad than you would have otherwise, since Liina’s husband always follows when she gets thrown out on the street.

Food for Thought

Does anyone dine out anymore? I don't do it enough to write a restaurant review, but obviously someone does: the following was sent to me as a press release this morning. I'm pleased that people in Estonia are dining out and that they haven't lost their sense of humor. Given what the Social Minister said to the BBC yesterday (15% unemployment on the way--it's currently around seven), I hope we're all lucky enough to find something to laugh about.

The 2008 George Bernard Shaw Food for Thought Gastronomy Awards

“He was never more serious than when he was joking.”
–said of Mr. Shaw

After much deliberation, the George Bernard Shaw Society of Estonia proudly announces its Food for Thought Gastronomy Award winners for 2008.

Hermann Simm Best Kept Secret Award
There’s no such thing as a secret, though some information does take longer to become public. In the spirit of secrets that shouldn’t remain so, we’re proud to celebrate Riis, the secretive cellar restaurant run by three charming young women who refuse to use anything but fresh vegetables. Pärnu mnt. 62A.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” Best Gourmet Restaurant Award
In the oblivious spirit of “Let them eat cake,” this award honors the places we’d all like to dine in more often, if only our pocket books would allow. This year’s honor goes to Horisont at Swissotel. Not only a spectacular view but, considering the economy, an altogether fine place for a last meal.

Luciano Pavarotti Six Chickens for Dinner Best Soul Food Award
When you want to stuff yourself in a comfortable restaurant surrounded by staff who seem to actually want you to be there, Contravento is the place to go. Contravento has held its own for years now as the Tallinn institution of Italian food. Vene 12.

Passepartout Best Ethnic Restaurant Award
Named for Phileas Fogg’s manservant, this award honors courageous purveyors of the spicy and exotic. Given the quick expiration of restaurants in the republic, Estonian food now classifies as exotic and ethnic, and so the award goes to Eesti Maja with its good food and service at a fair price. Lauteri 1.

Tree Huggers’ Haven Award
Where to go after a long day of spiking trees? Exhausted from ramming that whaling vessel? There’s no place better than Nop to relax with an organic pastry, big dill pickle, or beetroot and sauerkraut. Carnivores welcome, too. Nop is one of the jury’s absolute favorites. Köleri tn 1 in Kadriorg.

Sweaty Edgar Best Hole-in-the-Wall Restaurant Award
This is the place you creep off to when the wife is out of town. Its hygienic standards are questionable, but you don’t really care—the food is good, and it doesn’t matter how you dress, because you won’t see anybody you know. Torn between two fine grungy spaces, the jury chose to give the award to both. Ironically, both feature names of jury members’ ex-wives. Try Karmen at Paldiski mnt 72A and Diana at Tammsaare 87. Can’t go wrong.

Holly Golightly Best Café Award
Stylish and flighty, it’s the best place to get the food Tiffany’s never served. You may have avoided Museum, since its appearance from outside makes you think it might be filled with Russian thugs and plenty of blonde bimbos. But that’s its charm, my friend, and if you don’t see Holly there, you can be reasonably certain she’s arriving soon. Vana-Viru 14.

Rick Blaine Best Bar Award
No bar has ever measured up to Rick’s Café Americain, but there’s always hope. A sophisticated place where rogues, spies, les femmes fatales, and bon vivants gather to swap lies. If you’re after shady, then Lady Shadow on Suur-Karja won’t disappoint. With any luck you’ll find yourself seated next to Mata Hari while being eyed by George Smiley through the swaying belly dancer.

Bob Dylan Fat Black Pussycat Dive Bar Award
You might find Dylan seated in a dark corner composing “Blowing in the Wind,” but you sure as hell won’t meet any Eurovision candidates here. We’re happy to give the nod to Valli baar, which sadly seems to be losing a bit of its charm with all the hen parties paying it a visit. But we have faith that Valli baar will always have a seat for a drunk, as long as he’s able to maintain an upright posture. Müürivahe 16.

Oliver Twist Best Gruel (Worst Restaurant) Award
For the second year in a row this award goes to the restaurant Paat in Viimsi. It’s a Mecca for diners who love frozen vegetables. True, the view is hard to beat, but plenty a customer has gone in as a teenager and come out as a pensioner. It’s, in a word, slow. Address withheld as a merciful public service to diners.

Kalev Meedia Most Ridiculous Business Concept Award
Something like a 150 semi-formal seats in a beach restaurant in a location trafficked only three months a year isn’t the mostly likely formula for success. We wish Pärl all the luck, but don’t see it lasting without a lot of serious cash to prop it up. In the Pirita rannahoone.

Soul Food

Texas’ best barbecue, according to Texas Monthly magazine, is located in the town of Lexington and open only Saturdays from eight a.m. until the meat runs out (generally around noon). Weekdays, the restaurant’s owner works in a coal mine, and the chef, known as Miss Tootsie, is a 73-year-old former middle school janitor.

Of course, the restaurant has more than a story—it’s got great food. But the story is a large part of its appeal. Which is what I often find myself missing in Estonian restaurants: a story.

A friend of mine likens the Estonian dining experience to eating from vending machines in a hospital cafeteria. Assembly-line dining serving not what’s market fresh but what the wholesaler delivered. Who’ll even care, seems too often the logic of the chef, when everyone is only here to impress each other?

Luckily, that’s changing. Family-run or passionately-run restaurants are slowly sprouting all over Estonia. There’s the Creperie in Kadriorg, Anni Aro’s café in Haapsalu, and and the Chocolaterie in the Old Town. And of course there’s everybody’s old standby, Contravento. I can’t name all Estonia’s soul food joints here—readers will do that in the comments section—but suffice it to say there’s a trend toward restaurants whose interiors do not resemble Nevada brothels and where food itself is the actual draw.

The newest one on that list is the Šoti Klubi (Scottish Club) at the end of Uus Street in the Old Town. What has always been a pretty good bar and average restaurant has become an excellent restaurant with a pretty good bar. Chef Agu Alert supervised the removal of the monster bar which dominated the place and has turned it into a restaurant which is downright, well, European. From your first step in the door, you know it’s a family affair—in this case a family of one. Agu is the restaurant’s proprietor, chef, waiter, barman, and sometimes dishwasher. He’s a one-man show trying to make a go of a place in a market where the pundits say thirty percent of all restaurants will go belly up before spring.

And I’m rooting for him. I want his roe appetizer (given up by the fish under his personal supervision), slow-cooked lamb (the only oven like it in the country), and crème brûlée (not intolerably sweet like most make it) to be around come springtime, when my business picks up a bit and I'm able to dine out more.

I asked Agu how much he was sleeping in order to do every job in the place, and he answered three hours. “You need to get some of those little Knorr’s packages…” my wife Liina suggested. He’d slept so little he found her joke only half funny but resisted bludgeoning her with a rolling pin long enough to seriously respond that nobody would come to eat astronaut or backpacker food.

It it’s true that thirty percent of restaurants will go bankrupt before springtime, then I consider it my job to see that it’s the right thirty percent. Like many others, my business has suffered in this crisis and I live on a lot less than I did a year ago. So I’m even choosier about where I spend my hard-earned shekels. I’ve shunned experimentation and pretense and have gone straight for the soul food—places which Miss Tootsie of Texas might approve of. I want to put good things in my stomach and put my money behind people who give a damn and love the work they do. And if we all do the same, we can count on a beautiful spring.