The popular Orient Express Restaurant is situated at the corner of Marata and Kolokolnaya Streets, just within five minutes walk from the Nevsky Prospect. To pass this thematic restaurant by without noticing is just impossible - the steam locomotive on the front of the entrance will surely attract your attention.
The restaurant has two halls, named according to the system accepted in trains: the second-class carriage and the VIP carriage. In the refined individual design blue and white colors, associated in Russia with trains, dominate. Thematic photos and train models decorate the walls and sustain the stated traveling theme. The waitresses, friendly and attentive unlike the majority of soviet conductors, are dressed according to the fashion of the 1930s. The feeling of being in some train is created not only due to the original design but also because of whistles and sounds of the railway station accompanying the pleasant background music.
The Orient Express restaurant offers the "passengers" the wonderful menu, comprised from the best dishes of Russian and Caucasian cuisine. Cold and hot starters, soups, meat and fish hot dishes, desserts - any of these menu sections boasts several dozens of dishes. Only such dish as shashlyk (meal dish cooked on the brazier) is presented in several varieties: made of chicken, lamb, mutton, beef, pork, sturgeon and even prawns. A lot of dishes are cooked on the open fire - on the so-called "mangal", reminding of train firebox. The tea is served in traditional glass-holders that were widely used in the Soviet epoch. Any Russian will feel a sort of flash back when he sees the cubes of sugar that usually accomplished tea served in the Soviet trains but have been practically disappeared by now.
The buffet that according to the accepted system can be ranked as the third class carriage, is quite a democratic place. Its interior reminds the commuter train: dark-brown wooden benches, typical of soviet trains, windows, train schedule that is in fact a menu. Maybe because of its democratic atmosphere the buffet is a popular meeting place as well as with young people shirking schools and with business people.
Quite often live concerts are held at the restaurant. The customers are welcomed to enjoy the popular music of the 1960s and 1970s.
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