Terra Pizza Metro Partizansky is the best Minsk cafe with democratic prices (as they put it) where lots of foreigners from the nearby hotel Tourist like to have a cup of coffee or two. The service in Terra Pizza is really good, whether down to the constant presence of foreign guests or simply because of good management. There is a kiddy menu, the prices aren’t biting, and there are chains in Uruch’e and Kuntsevshina, a menu in Russian and English, and a good website, for a change.
Grape Juice )))
SPINACH CREAM SOUP (chicken filllet, spinach, milk, Dziugas cheese, onions, dried crusts)
UKRAINIAN BORSCH (beet, bacon, beet, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, sour cream)
SALMON PANCAKES (pancakes, processed cheese, horseradish, slightly salted salmon, lettuce, dill) – these are really a Russian answer to sushi, very enjoyable
GREEN SALAD WITH HAM AND “PESTO“SAUCE (ham, tomatoes, sweet peppers, salad mix, “Pesto“ sauce, salad dressing, dried crusts)
FARFALLE SALMONA (farfalle pasta, ceps, champignons, onions, cream 33%)
PENNE BUONO (chicken fillet, champignons, sweet peppers, green peas, cream 33%) - disappears in a kiddy’s tummy time after time
CURD AND POPPY SEED CAKE (sponge cake, whipped cream, cottage cheese, poppy seed, chocolate, mint)
HONEY GLAZED BANANAS WITH ICE CREAM (bananas, honey, cinnamon, ice cream, chocolate sauce, fried peanuts, mint)
BANANA SPLIT (bananas, ice cream, cream, chocolate sauce, mint)
DESSERT “NAPOLEON“ (puff pastry, custard)
Verdict: the service in Terra Pizza is very good without being all over the place or trying too hard. (If you are with a kid and ordering one desert the waitress WILL bring two forks; if you are with a girlfriend ordering one desert, she’ll split one portion of the cake for the two of you – who needs those extra calories?). Not surprisingly, Terra Pizza is always busy, so best of luck to this Minsk cafe and thumbs up to the owners.
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Freski is another cafe right in the center of Minsk that is always full of visitors and disappointments. A few years back, the place was swimming in warm orange light, the cosy atmosphere was relaxing. Many of the reviewers on relax.by (Freski reviews are mostly negative, and the positive ones seem to have been written by the same copywriter who likes exclamation marks, a lot!!!!!) say it has changed for the worse. Has the number of goers diminished? Not at all. When we enter, on a work day evening, the only place offered to us (by a waitress, hostesses are extinct in Minsk) is the tiny table next to the entrance, where the frequent opening of the door bathes us in gusts of December air. Nice…
Spinach soup 21800
The soup is a standard pack of frozen spinach but nothing else could or should be expected at such prices (the only plus of Freski cafe).
Grilled chicken fillet with potatoes 44400
Grilled chicken in Freski is eagerly gulped down by the child, together with the fries, with the veggies virginally intact, but if anyone is listening, it would be really nice to find a truly healthy meal for a Minsk kid, because it seems that at the moment all Minsk chefs and restaurateurs are serving the young generation are fried food, and even if it’s broccoli or cauliflower, it has to be fried. This comes from the wrong assumption that kids only want McDonald’s fried food, and creates the vicious circle: because there nothing BUT fried food, kids surely WILL eat only fried food, because there is nothing else BUT fried food, get it? Nota Bene: kids are in love with cheat sheet meals like good puré soups; pasta with yummy sauces, bits of meat and boiled/steamed veggies; steamed cutlets with potato pure (where spinach or broccoli can be stealthily added). Of course it’s more work, but isn’t it worth it – to have a healthy nation?
Sander fillet with tiger prawns 72900
The fish is edible but the ubiquitous parsley as well as the presentation in general leave much to be desired (as Renato Cucinotta mentioned in his Freski review). The dish is on the priceier side and could have been presented better.
Beef steak 77450
The meet is ok-ish (no one bothered to ask how well it needed to be cooked) and the potato triangles are tasty.
Ice cream with fresh strawberries 26250
Ice cream from the box, cream from the can, strawberries from the plastic container – once again, why bother go out if all can be conjured up at home?
Three chocolates cake 31900
Standard Belarusian desert that most Belarusians will find marvellous because that’s what they make at home. It is ok with the not-so-great coffee but it ain’t no Falcone delight.
The service in Freski cafe is unbearably slow. Judging from the state of the chairs, tables, toilets the place is busy at all times, and it seems like either there isn’t enough staff to keep it at least cosmetically clean, or the staff and the administration simply don’t care because of the prevalent, and unfortunately correct, ‘people will come’ confidence.
Why did we come to Freski in the first place then? Our intention was to go to Grand Cafe, but when we entered the venerable place, two fake tanned girls at the entrance told us it was full, and instead of offering a place the next day, or offering ANYTHING BUT to walk to Grand de Luxe in the freezing weather with a small child, just looked at us and smiled. We went across the road to the officially lauded hotel ‘Europe’ and when we came in instead of being greeted with warm welcomes (or any welcome, at this point) and escorted to the table of OUR choice (the place was bare except for a bored violinist) were stared down as if had three heads each, and fire was coming out of our asses.
If you are in the area, even if it’s for a cup of coffee, I would suggest Renaissance, Biblos, or better still La Crete d’or coffeehouse. Maybe Freski staff will think twice then.
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Anonymous asked: there was a military university at kalenovskova st and looking for the adress
sorry, i wouldn’t know, but i will look it up. cheers.
Vasilki is the place to be, in terms of middle-of-the-road cafes. It looks like a peasant hut, a very very clean peasant hut made of plastic. It is always busy, especially on weekends. Long lines of people waiting to get in are customary – not a pleasant thing if you are sitting near the entrance. The waitress may offer you to share the table with other visitors, or nice visitors, like a polite shopping tourist from Moscow did for us, can offer the arrangement themselves.
Chidlren’s Menu
Chidlren’s Desert Menu – cocktails almost the same prices as Mom’s and Dad’s – not complaining, just saying
Crayons and paper on the menu
‘Wooden’ utensils
Mulled wine (without the wine – a non alcoholic version)
‘Little Vitamin’ Children’s cocktail
‘Little Star’ Children’s French Fries
‘Fresh From The Garden’ salad – really yummy with sunflower seeds, onions, tomatoes and a variety of salads; arguably the best salad at Vasilki cafe
A la Caesar’s
Boletus Mushroom soup plus yummy bread
Frying pan of sausages and pork rind – really, really satisfying (4 hours on the treadmill)
‘Happy Tree Stump’ chicken chop with potatoes - children are welcome in Vasilki
Pear pie – errr, skip it
Cappuccino
Vasilki cafe is right in the center of Minsk. The service can be slow during the lunch hours and weekends so try to look for a ‘clear’ spot to enjoy this chain cafe of national Belarusian cuisine and the Vasilki shop next door.
Hugo Boss Minsk
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Golden Coffee Club was abuzz with loud dance music and screaming people inside. Everyone stared at my kid, as if it was a three headed pink elephant with wings, and the second floor, which obscured the only table that wasn’t occupied was roasting with scents of hookah filler (no, it ain’t ‘prostitute’ spelt in a funny way)– apple, cinnamon, cherry.
The overworked waitress, who panted and carried a balloon of negatively charged air around her, forgot to smile, but brought the menu (in Russian and English).
,
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t eat pizza. But I was with a friend and the friend looks about as thick as a match (which I could put down to a strict diet of pizzas only), so pizza was ordered, together with a shake for the child and smoothie for said friend.
The coffee at Golden Coffee Club Minsk wasn’t very good, and didn’t wake me up a bit, and with streaks of sweat trickling down my back and forming a pool in between my breasts, I craved water more than anything else. I remembered hours after my operation when I wasn’t allowed to drink and dreamt of all the drinks that were invented by man; that’s what Golden Coffee Club is, upstairs, unless you are a hookah (yes, this is ‘prostitute’ spelt in a funny way) in a tiny-wini bikini. (But I liked the water on the side of my espresso).
The smoothie was good, testified the friend, but the pepperoni pizza looked like it was dropped from the second floor onto the pavement, picked up from under the stilettoed heel of a fashinista, smelling expensive and waving her laminated curls around, and smacked back on the plate. With presentation like this it was no wonder most people in Golden Coffee Club were sitting with straws glued to their lips – this isn’t exactly a place for the gourmand (which I am not).
The waitress brought the bill instead of the cheesecake I ordered, and when I pointed her blunder to her she got mad, then upset, then defensive, instead of saying ‘Sorry’. For a long time, she had been explaining to us why she couldn’t bring tea: they haven’t ordered enough kettles, and since it was full house, the ones they did order were occupied, and we’d have to wait 20 minutes, an hour maybe. Errr, hmmm, ahek-ahek.
On our subsequent visits to Golden Coffee Club with the child we were presented with a children’s menu, tried the chicken soup and chicken fillet club sandwiches, mushroom lasagna, a strawberry-banana smoothie and the most pretentious coffee ‘Lady Strawberry’.
The lasagna was good and we came back again, on a busy Saturday afternoon, to be told no lasagnas were served, and since the rest of the menu suddenly vanished as well, we just had a couple of milkshakes Nostalgia (tasty, orange and peach) and left.
The first floor of Golden Coffee Club is cosy and somewhat dimly lit, with a faux homely atmosphere (books, books everywhere) so popular with the cafe interior designers in Minsk. The place is ALWAYS busy and even the non-smoke area is always full of second hand smoke. In short, it’s not ‘the best cafe in Minsk’, its humble slogan for the website.
Golden Coffee Club is not for the light-hearted. The music is too loud, the people too young and need to have sticks up their asses surgically removed. Unless you want to try hookah (works both ways), don’t go to the second floor. And yes, leave the kids at home. If they run out of this Minsk cafe blocking the entrance and ruining the grand arrival of the next It bitch, you (and the child) are risking a black eye (eyes).
When a square-foreheaded security guard the size of a double wardrobe didn’t let us into a place we always thought we would never be let in when we were hungry students, it wasn’t a good start for the night. Why we ended up in Planeta Sushi no one knows, we were planning to have a couple of speedy cocktails at a mysterious place with the unsmiling tin man at the entrance, or somewhere else fast and furious but we ended up in Planeta Sushi instead. Yep, karma is a bitch.
I have nothing against Planeta Sushi per se. To tell you the truth, there is nothing more I long for in the world than to write excellent reviews of every place I go to, every song I listen to, every article I read and every movie I watch. Excellent reviews are so easy and pleasant to write; I sometimes even tear up. Excellent reviews would make a better city, a better world, a better me. As it is, I am either relegated to keep my silence (I never managed to squeeze out anything about Loft Café), which I find more disgusting than speaking the truth; or have to upset myself and the reader with another unfavourable one.
No, I don’t have anything against the place. From what I notice when I pass by frequently, it’s always busy. It was once stylish and hip, I would guess, and it remains one of the most popular places on the main street.
But I don’t think that smoking and sushi make any sense so it is difficult to understand the grey clouds hanging above every chair on the second floor (the terrace was occupied). I don’t think that having fewer staff on a Saturday night is a good idea either. The hostess (or administrator, or whatever staff members wearing lighter, better uniforms and flashing whiter teeth are called) was nice and smiley, but as long as she seated us next to the stairs where waitresses kept sneaking up and down as if they had just stolen a kitchen utensil and had to hide it somewhere pronto (why does this remind me of Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton? I do pray it’s not a fork), she believed her mission was accomplished. Any restaurateur should know that a waiting customer is an expectant customer, and an expectant customer with a menu on the table, at the very least, is a much happier customer than the one having to play games with napkins and send out messages of frustration and rage to the innocent Universe.
The smoke was too much, and my friend (I always choose very vocal friends, while I do my bit of wallflowering, merging with the furniture, and generally pretending to be the most innocuous creature on the planet, which always works, to great effect, - I believe revenge is best served cold) asked for a place on the terrace where ‘it was possible to breathe’. (My friend is a health freak like me, even though a casual smoker at that - and no, there is no contradiction.)
Downstairs, looking at the people who were coming in (and going out – not everyone is happy to wait for their menu for twenty minutes) we were still staring at the black tables in front of us. When the menus arrived it was worth the wait because they were about as informative as encyclopaedias and as colourful as nursery rhyme books, wonderful to leaf through (especially if you don’t focus on the prices too much), menus pretty versatile for a sushi place. I love sweet sushi and Planeta Sushi is offering a variety of gorgeous creations that are good for my soul and bad for my cellulite and that I would have tried had anyone paid me for doing this (anonymous contributions are most welcome, as always) and had I not wanted to get totally wasted later on. There were other great things on the menu, including tame dishes for the lovers of normal cooked food who sometimes have to accompany the lovers of abnormal raw food to places like Planeta Sushi. A crutch is always good, I say.
The atmosphere of the summer terrace was somewhat awkward with waitresses running around the place looking at the floor, people waiting around nervously – either for the menus, or their order, or the bill – things just going slowly and the most impatient type getting up to leave, possibly never to return. It is hard to believe any place can afford losing a single client in the current economy, but Planeta Sushi staff seem to be cool about it. Gotta be something in the water.
Writing this, I decide to give the place the benefit of a doubt and see what the others are saying. From what I read on 360.by and relax.by people are complaining about small portions, slow service (waiting 60-90 minutes for the order, waiting 20 min for the menu), dirty ashtrays (I can testify to that). On our unlucky visit, the food and its presentation was unfortunately nothing to boast about. The cocktails were nice but the sushi too small for my taste and the prices inordinate considering such service lapses. I am never against a higher price when it’s worth it. It simply wasn’t the case.
After numerous trips to the bathroom and hours (minutes, naturally, but you know us, drama queens) of waiting around we decided we would miss the beginning for the main event we were going to and my friend with a speaker for a mouth went out to battle for the bill. No client should ever go looking for staff to pay for their food. I don’t know. It wasn’t a pleasant surprise. To be perectly honest, it didn’t feel like a restaurant. I vote sushivesla.
