Arriving in Moscow at 6 in the morning, we were anything but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. In a moment of rare foresight, we decided then and there to arrange our tickets to Irkutsk. Once we found the correct booth to buy the tickets at, we spent fifteen minutes trying to find an ATM willing to do its job; we ended up to-ing and fro-ing between two train stations located right next to each other (…) punctuated only by taxi drivers offering us their services by the dozen.

We had the same minor annoyance with both finding the subway station entrance, and the hostel itself. Three hours after arriving in Moscow, we finally found our hostel, hidden more or less, in an apartment near the ring line (at the 11 O’clock mark (Mayakovskaya metro station)). Advertising a business run from a private residence isn’t allowed in Russia, so there was no way for us to know that we hit the right place except to ring the buzzer; the descriptions for finding it were conveniently indecipherable (mostly due to the extremely counterintuitive layout of metro stations).

After four hours of pure, unadulterated restoration, we set out to do some aimless sightseeing. A light drizzle persisted throughout the entire day: it was perfectly straddled between being bad weather and just an annoyance. We started off with breakfast at Khleb, a small bakery on Tverskaya, the main street closest to our hostel. I had a pirog stuffed with rice and pork that was so dense it could’ve been made from gold. Starch wrapped in starch seems to be a big hit in Russia.

Upon arriving in downtown Moscow, we managed to walk out into the middle of nowhere. That wasn’t any fun, so we turned around and sought out the Red Square. The cobblestones glistened from the rain, and we could see all of eight other people out there. After walking around for a bit feeling the Communist Glory, we decided to head inside for something to drink.
We went for a stroll, saw the old KGB headquarters, and ended up at the Pushkin  State Museum of Fine Art. They had an insane, almost kitschy collection of every single seminal piece of sculpture from antiquity. Caryatids from the Acropolis, Myron, Lysippos; Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the tyrant killers, all the athletes (doryphoros, diademenous, etc). It almost seemed as if someone opened Gardner’s Art Through the Ages and started ticking them off.

After a quick rest at the hostel – I’m growing fond of napping – we headed out to Tinkoff, a micro brewery / brew pub. In Russia! I for one, was excited. Exiting Kosmososkaya(?), we walked alongside a telling feature of Moscow: long-ass streches of road there is no possible way to cross, forcing us to add another 10 minutes to our walk.

Tinkoff seemed like a polished concept, and reminded me of a few other brew pubs I’ve been to abroad. Their beers were singularly unspectacular: 7 sorts, including 2 pilsners, 1 alcohol free brew (?!), 2 ”dark” beers, a seasonal brew and a wheat beer. But at least they had comfort food, albeit quite expensive. We opted for a shared starter with deep-fried cheese (yessir), chicken wings, sausages and fried squid. All of which were disappointing.

For the main course, we both wanted lamb. At the time the main course would normally be served, our waiter informed us that they had run out of lamb, and could only offer it to one of us. Michael went for ”Köln sausage” that turned out to taste eerily like the anaemic-looking spiced Norwegian ”medister” sausage.

My lamb was the roughest cut, toughest piece of meat I’ve ever had the displeasure of trying to eat. It had no redeeming features what so ever.

Well, enough about that. Dinner and 2 beers per head came to 1200 rubles per head, or 250,- Norwegian.

The following day saw the exact opposite: unbridled feasting for several hours. Through Tim (www.timwendelboe.no) we had an opportunity to sit down with Polina and Kira of Coffeemania, a chain of coffee shop/restaurant/bars in Moscow.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but suffice to say, I was blown away by their hospitality and generosity. Starting with a breakfast in the first of their shops, where we had red caviar blinis (blinae?) that were to die for several times over, then small cottage cheese pancakes that were moreish, for lack of a better word.

Unfortunately, Coffeemania has been having a little trouble with green beans not arriving when they should, so we sadly weren’t able to try their own espresso blend.

We got to try a Russian French Press, however: espresso roasted coffee brewed exclusively with steamed milk heated to around 80c as I recall. As far as I understood, this was a ploy of sorts to convert Russians to the joys of non-espresso forms of coffee. As a predominantly tea drinking country, Russia doesn’t have a tradition of lighter roasted filter brewed coffees that we take for granted in Norway. In fact, Coffeemania didn’t roast any of their coffees lighter than for espresso.

After the sumptuous breakfast, we left for the Red Square again. Unfortunately, it was cordoned off for some reason, and we didn’t hang around for long until leaving for another of their locations. All in all, we visited 4 Coffeemanias and got to sample large portions of their drink selection.

Everything from coffee and coffee drinks to smoothies to non-alcoholic cocktails, juices, lemonades, champagne and juice mixes and drinks. They were all expertly made by the employees and came across as well thought out and balanced.
The most interesting were a tarragon lemonade, vanilla ice cream and pear mix (more than the sum of its parts, to be sure),  as well as cold coffee drinks: a reversed cold cappuccino, with a cold coffee foam on top of cold milk. In the more sweet direction was an eggnog and coffee drink.

At the Japanese-themed CM Kira manages (she came 2nd in the 2008 World Latte Art Championship and 11th in the 2009 World Barista Championship), we saw one of their colleagues compete in the 2009 WLAC through ustream.tv. Tensions were running high, but unfortunately she just missed the finals. The Norwegian competitor from Dromedar in Trondheim  sadly didn’t make the finals either.

While there, I got to try a traditional Russian fish soup that actually had a bit of vodka in it. It was amazing.
We finished up at a location a bit further out of the city centre, where we, aside from champagne spritzers and several drinks, got to try Vareniki, a Russian form of dumpling served with sour cream. Mine were filled with cherries, and were an interesting cross between dessert and dinner.

Throughout the day, we learned a lot about Russian coffee culture as it stands today, and even got to make Polina and Kira an aeropressed Aricha #28. With the extreme level of professionalism they and the entire CM staff have, they’ll definitely be able to push coffee in Russia in new and exciting directions.

Everything was great and we couldn’t have asked for better hosts. As if being pampered the entire day wasn’t enough, they also sent us off with a few sandwiches for our train trip.

Suffice to say, we left on a high note.

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Beijing, China