We were all set to make a recommendation yesterday about this restaurant.
It's in a row full of cafes so it was hard to spot whether it had food or just drinks and ice-creams but we eventually spotted a menu, so we had lunch. I had a salad with chicken, rucola, walnuts, avocado and morello cherries. There was lots of rucola, plenty of everything else and not very much mayonnaise (clearly not very authentic for a Russian restaurant). I'm not sure whether the morello cherries were a good idea but were better than beetroot for the same effect of turning the avocado purple. My colleague had a salad with chicken, pine nuts, thinly sliced pears and gorgonzola. Again adequate quantities but not much mayonnaise. The bread seemed home made and still warm.
The waiters were dressed in mock Russian costume with the high collar blouse with coloured braiding off-centre down the front. The waitresses, who were only allowed to sell ice-cream, were got up in those funny tiara style hats, with rustic smock dresses that looked like maternity gear, mostly in red. Why anyone would want a waitress job in the place is not clear.
On the whole we were favourably impressed as it wasn't expensive, and had nice outdoor tables near a not too noisy square. We made fools of ourselves complaining there were no spoons with our coffee, only to be shamed by the waiter who pointed out that the plastic stirrers were wrapped in an identical way to the sugar. If it bends, it's sugar, OK? We made fools of ourselves a second time by having to count out our last dinar for the bill and still hadn't enough. So I dashed to the hole in the wall round the corner.
After all that we were definitely remembered today, when we decided to come back for more salads. After ordering the same as yesterday but the other way round, we sat back in the sun looking forward to our lunch. After 10 minutes (he had to search the complete kitchen, maybe) the waiter came back to apologise that if we wanted those salads we would have to wait 20 minutes, but we could have Greek salad immediately. Did we have a choice? An earlier lunch when our other colleague had ordered plum dumplings (also in only 20 minutes) which came after 40 minutes had already taught us how long we might have to wait. So we settled for Greek salad which was really big and really good, with more fresh bread. Nevertheless, what sort of restaurant doesn't have supplies of salad for lunch? It's true that from our observations, most Serbs can't afford to eat out and content themselves with a drink or two, or maybe ice-cream. But this is in a prime tourist area.
So we can recommend Russky Tsar on a Wednesday but not on a Thursday. We may not be able to report on other days.
